This Is Your Becoming
by Jemma Elise Oates
Summary: He saw her, and he thought, 'She could be crafted, sculpted, the tableau of his own design.' She thought it would be beautiful, some natural and elegant metamorphosis. But this becoming felt of pain, of some beast that prowled around in the depths of her heart. . . He was going to tear her apart and make her anew. Her ruin would be his creation. This was her becoming.
1. Chapter 1

**All rights to Hannibal (TV) belong to NBC.**

* * *

 _ **Benny's Stop and Dine, Virginia**_

She dropped the omelet. Nobody noticed.

Nobody was there to notice.

Benny's Stop and Dine wasn't a place to actually stop, especially _this_ late at night.

The gas prices weren't high, but they weren't low either.

The food inside the diner that was _in_ the gas station wasn't all that good either.

But that was the charm of Benny's.

Somewhere off of Interstate 95, far from the urban populations, but not far enough to be convenient or comfortable, there was Benny's Stop and Dine. It was a quaint little station that would have been charmingly themed to the fifties if it wasn't so run down. The checkerboard tiles that were supposed to be black and white were stained. The once white walls were well beyond beige, and the blue leather on the booths, chairs, and stools were peeling, torn, and, as the rest of the diner, off color. The metal parts of the furniture were rusting. The pictures on the walls were faded. The lights that once read "Open" and "Come On In" were broken. The only thing that was in mildly good condition was the jukebox, and the music on it hadn't been updated since before she was born.

Not many people stopped for gas, and even less stopped for the food.

That was the problem, she supposed. _She_ wasn't well prepared to actually cook some poor man an omelet. _She_ wasn't prepared to cook at all. _She_ was the waitress.

With a heavy sigh, she hung her head, shaking it after a few moments of wallowing in disappointment. Having punished herself enough, she raised her head, and tried to clean up fast before moving to try to make a new one.

The second was better than the first. There was that, at least.

Still, it was a sad omelet, if one could even call it that.

 _But_ she had to serve him something.

And so, she straightened out some wrinkles on her decades old uniform and made her way over, omelet in hand as well as a free bottle of that good ol' cheap, off-brand, soda. It was the best that she could give as an apology for the wait. And for the poor omelet. And for the diner as a whole.

Even the apology soda was sad.

"I didn't order a soda."

She looked at the man, half surprised he even spoke, half surprised that he was real. It was hard to tell what was real and what wasn't during the graveyard shift. Stuck in a diner that was stuck in another era, yet dead all the same, in the middle of nowhere was enough to rub anyone the wrong way. She'd seen a lot during night shifts. That's why she hated it so much. The only people that came in during the night time were never _good_ people. Well, they were never people in a _good_ place, literally and figuratively.

The man before her didn't look all that good either.

He was tall. She saw that when he walked inside. He was taller than her, even with what she now knew to be habitually hunched shoulders. He looked as if he were just waiting, even inside the safety of the diner, bracing himself against some cosmic blow from the sky that would, hypothetically, take out the taller people first. So there was some logic to it, she assumed. She couldn't be too sure on his form. He was defined by a wrinkled suit jacket, a plaid shirt underneath that was twice as wrinkled from what she could see.

He looked like the kind to layer.

Not for the weather, but for the comfort of having _something_ between one's bare body and the harsh world.

His hair was a mess of curls, matching a scruffy beard. She'd seen him scratch at it while she was cooking the first omelet. He was too focused on the papers in front of him to actually notice she dropped the first - She hoped he was too focused. When she emerged from behind the counter, he shoved the papers into a manila file folder, watching carefully as the mess of a waitress approached him.

His eyes were blue.

Not light as the sky, not rich in color, but still blue. _Clear_. _Clear blue_. Clear blue eyes behind clear glasses - as clear as any could be - that sat on a well shaped nose, the kind that wouldn't let glasses slide down easily. Despite the glass barrier between his eyes and hers, she still felt uncomfortable.

She felt naked.

He didn't look like he belonged in this place any more than she did, yet she still felt like the one out of place.

"You also didn't order as bad an omelet as that."

She meant it as a joke, but the poor quality of the omelet was too true to carry any humor.

"It's still edible," he said, looking at the burnt eggs.

She smiled, if only a little.

"Then the soda's for the long wait," she shrugged.

The man put a hand behind his head, scratching at the back of his head, thinking carefully over what he was going to say or do. She couldn't really tell what thoughts were there, and felt even more out of place as the seconds ticked by. At first, he didn't say anything. Maybe he thought if he was quiet enough, she'd go away. She was almost going to turn on her feet, to retreat behind the safety of the counter, putting a barrier between them, when he spoke.

"You don't usually have customers this late, do you?"

Why he was asking, she didn't know.

"We don't usually have customers," she answered honestly, looking to the entrance. The door let out a whistle from the heavy winds outside. It was too dark to see much. Only the four gas pumps were visible. Beyond that was just the void. More nothing to isolate the diner. Stuck outside of time in more ways than one, it was.

"That can't be true," the man argued. "You must have enough to keep this place open all night long."

He had a point there. She often wondered how Benny's was able to stay open. The only difference was that she didn't ask.

She never asked.

It wasn't her place to ask questions.

"We get enough, I guess."

The answer didn't satisfy. She could see that much in the way he tried to direct his attention to his food. His brow was furrowed, a frown resting on his chapped lips. She tried to remember if he was frowning before. Maybe he was, maybe he wasn't. Her memory wasn't as good as it once was, but she liked it that way. It was easier to keep moving if one didn't remember what they were leaving behind.

"We have you," she said after some time just standing there. She didn't have to stay. She could have gone behind the counter, cleaned the dishes, maybe even try to scrub some of the years of stains off of, well, everywhere. She liked it behind the counter, separated from everything and everyone. Still, she was still human, and humans, even the ones fond of solitude, didn't like isolation.

She told herself that she was starved of socialization.

How long had it been since she actually talked to someone in person?

Looking up from his omelet, the man looked at her curiously. He must have eaten some in the time that she was lost in thought because he swallowed. Loudly. She couldn't imagine that the food tasted good, but he didn't cringe. He just watched her. She wondered if he liked seeing her squirm. Her fingers were busied, fiddling with the fabric of her skirt. She felt more self conscious than she had in the past few months. Maybe even years. She wanted to look everywhere, at anything other than him. The part of her that wanted to look at him, the part of her that was intrigued by this strange man, won instead.

"I don't think you can count on one person to uphold a business."

She blushed.

"No," she agreed with. "But a few can be enough."

"So you get customers on other nights?" It wasn't a question, and she knew it.

"No. Can't say we do."

"We?"

"Me and the diner," she answered, turning red with embarrassment. She felt like she was pathetic. _A pathetic little nobody in the pathetic diner in the middle of nowhere_.

He didn't look at her with judging eyes.

There was understanding in it. She had a hard time imagining anyone could empathize with her. She had a unique kind of loneliness, but she knew that she shouldn't be as crass as to think that she was _that_ unique.

Unique was the wrong word.

Alone. That was the right word. She didn't think that anyone knew the desolating loneliness that she chose to exist in. It wasn't the kind that came by force. Nothing forced her to choose this life. It was all circumstances and presented choices. She made hers and it led her here to working in this diner in the dead of night with only a stranger as company. Yet, she wasn't alone. She knew that by the look in his eyes. That look was the reason behind her shutting her mouth tight, fearing what he might do if she opened it, letting the wrong words fall free. She didn't know him. She didn't know if she wanted to know him. She _did_ want him though. She wanted his company. She wanted the temporary relief, the brief reminder that she was still alive, that she wasn't fully alone.

People aren't meant to be alone.

"I'll leave you to it."

She wanted to ask more. She wanted to ask why he was up so late, what brought him to the diner, what were those papers that he tucked away before she could see. She wanted to know why he looked like he understood her. She wanted to know if he was truly as alone as she. But she didn't. She just made her way back behind the counter, ducking down to clean up the floor. Then, she washed the dishes. And then, she tried cleaning the counter for the eleventh time that night. Between all of that, she would look up occasionally, taking a glance at the stranger. On a few instances, he was looking back at her, causing her to look away. She took her time with the cleaning as if it would stretch out time itself, as if it would allow her time to savor the time when she wasn't as alone as she usually was. Yet, like all good things, it came to an end. The man gave her a nod on his way out.

 _Was that a smile that she saw on his face?_

Whether he smiled or not, she gave one of her own. It only grew when she went to the table he once sat at, finding a small tip waiting. The tender smile she grew lasted for the remainder of her shift. It wasn't for the amount. It wasn't a big tip, but it held something big. Something massive. After all, it wasn't for the food. It wasn't for the service. She was left to assume that it was left behind as a silent thank you, mutual appreciation for company. Though they hadn't spoken much, the silence in which they existed together was the most cherished moment she could claim in the past months, years even. It said something about her life, that a stranger could make this big of an impact, but she cared little for whatever judgement the average person would pass.

When it came time to leave, she gathered her things - a small purse filled with only her keys, her phone, and a wallet which held only cash, a card, and id. She didn't put his tip in her wallet. She didn't even put it into her purse. She folded the money neatly and tucked it into her breast pocket, something a co-worker, the one that replaced her in the early hours of the day, noticed. Neither spoke a word, but both were taken back by the happiness that overcame her. Neither could remember a time when she displayed such an emotion. For the first time in a long time, she felt alive.

Even driving to her small apartment building, she found her mind drifting back to the strange man. Tucked into bed by the time that the sun fully rose, she found her last moments of consciousness filled with hopes that it wouldn't be the last time she saw him.

For the next few weeks, she volunteered for the same late night shift. She saw him every other night. Each time, he would order an omelet, which gradually better. Each time he would leave a tip. It became a ritual, one that both needed more than they wanted to admit, and they did not admit much. They barely even spoke, but they were fine like that. At least, she thought they were until one night, before he left, before he gave the usual farewell nod, he stopped at the counter, and with a troubled expression, he told her he wouldn't be back for a while. And he wasn't. She stayed on the night shift, every night as hopeful as the last, every night twice as painful when he didn't show. And so, she fell back into old habits. She cleaned the windows, counters, the floors. She sat at a table, never his, and reread old books. She didn't know if days, weeks, or even a month passed.

Her boss offered to switch her to the day shift, as if she didn't know that there was any other option for her.

She didn't take it at first.

But he insisted. She only took a slightly earlier shift.

She avoided the day shift.

There was more people during the day, and she felt safer alone in the dark than surrounded in the day. There was little sense in it, but still.

It was Saturday. The wind was loud. Dirt scratched the outside windows. She occasionally looked up when the door opened, only for it to be from strong winds. She would then drop her gaze, disappointed. She didn't know how long it had been into the night until she heard the door ring followed by the sound of shoes scraping against the welcome rug. Her eyes snapped to attention, head lifting from her hand that so sluggishly was used to prop herself up, having been lounging on the counter.

Her tired face lifted, lips twitching into a wistful smile, unsure if he was really there.

And he was.

He looked different. His hair was messier, looking as though he had been on a run through the wind, tired and sweaty. Entirely unkempt. He wore a green jacket, under which was a plain white shirt that showed signs of him having sweat earlier. He looked stressed. More than ever. His shoes were muddy. In vain, he tried to wipe them off to save her the trouble of mopping. He should have known that mopping was never a hassle. It was a comfort to her. A habitual safety net.

Then he looked at her.

She said nothing. A part of her envied him, but she couldn't muster up any anger. It wasn't his fault that he had a life to keep him busy. Aside from his disheveled charm, he had his wits about him. He was clearly educated. She could tell he was kind and good at heart. More than anybody else she had ever met. Had they met before she left everything behind, she imagined he might have been the subject of her affections. She might have told a friend about them. Perhaps she would have found some sort of companionship. Girls were supposed to do that. Right? Find fellowship in common ground.

He was breathing hard.

She wondered if he ran inside to avoid the wind. Maybe he rushed inside. Maybe he wasn't going to stop at all and made a decision to on impulse.

She didn't know if that made her feel better or worse.

They stared at each other for a while, both silently watching carefully for any sign of change. Both were, to some degree, afraid of change. Both wanted to pick up right where they left off, as if he hadn't left. As if she hadn't hurt in his absence. There was an apology resting on his tongue, and forgiveness in her eyes. Neither spoke, but both understood as well as they would have if they did.

"When do you get off?" he blurted out.

No greeting. No smile. No preparation for the question. She should have known that small talk wasn't his forte. Neither gave the courtesy a fair try before, so why should he now? Of course, it still should have startled her, she thought. A man she barely knew was asking for her time off. She couldn't remember the last time she ever answered a personal question, and this felt personal. Personal felt foreign. It made her stomach not, and her mind tell her not to say. She spent the last few years making sure not to say anything personal. She couldn't even remember the last time she heard her name. She had to when she was interviewed, but beyond that...

"What time is it?" she asked.

It wasn't an answer, but it might as well have been.

"Nine."

"I have an hour left."

The man took her words in, giving a nod. She hadn't the slightest idea as to what he was going to do with that information. It seemed like a gamble, to tell this to a stranger.

But he's not a stranger.

Not really.

The man nodded again, and set off in a steadfast pace towards her. She felt her legs twitch, tempted to back away, somewhat spooked by the conviction in his eyes. He didn't do much. He only sat in one of the stools at the counter and nodded at the stove. The way his lips moved looked as if he was going to smile, as if he was _trying_ to smile.

"I'll have the usual then."

She smiled.

Gingerly, she closed the book she had been reading, setting it safely aside and moving to gather ingredients. Soon the sounds of sizzling and popping of cooking eggs filled the air, and for the first time since he stopped coming, she felt at ease. The tension left her shoulders with the sound of a few pops. She almost felt happy enough to hum, but to what, she didn't know. The only songs she could think of were from the jukebox, and those were hardly any that she'd find herself or him enjoying. So, she stayed silent, letting the symphony of familiarity run its course. And when it ended with the sound of the plate hitting the counter top, she felt satisfied, proudly smiling at what was an adequate omelet.

The man looked satisfied, maybe even comforted by the food.

The warmth that found its way into her chest was familiar, but in the way that one felt whenever they see someone they knew decades ago.

"Your shift ends earlier," the man pointed out.

"It does." She didn't know what to say to him, only deciding to ascertain his assumption.

He scratched at his cheek.

"Do you like working at night?"

The question sounded like the kind one asked during small talk, but it didn't feel that way. It didn't feel careless. It didn't feel unimportant. It felt like a test. Maybe not a test, but there was no word close to it. She felt like he was digging without digging deep, like he was kicking at the surface of the dirt in hopes of uncovering just enough to understand without the hassle of putting in a lot of effort. It felt like he was safely prompting her to give just enough to know her. A trial run, just a possibility for more. What "more" was, she couldn't tell.

"I'd rather work during the night than the day," she answered.

"But do you like it?"

She pursed her lips, looking down at the stained tile and then looking up, eyes sweeping over the diner, taking all of it in before contemplating her answer. She had spent so much of the past few years in this diner. It wasn't welcoming. That enough, she knew. There was no coziness to it. There was no warmth in it. It was just a little less unwelcoming than it was outside.

"No."

The answer she gave made her feel sick. She felt as if she had betrayed someone. Her boss? Herself? Something? The diner, probably. This place shielded her. It gave her somewhere to be, something to do. It gave her an excuse to stay up, a veil to hide the paranoia that never seemed to die down. It gave her a place to run and hide from what had been devouring her. It was her shelter against it. The diner was outside of everything. Within the world, but still untouched by it. It didn't look like the world passed through the Stop and Dine for a long time. It was a pain, to be so cut off from the world at times, but that was why she chose it, she supposed. It was cut off from _everything_. The good and the bad were severed. There had to be some freedom in that. _There has to be..._

Nothing could touch her in the diner.

That's all she cared about.

"What keeps you here?" the man asked, looking around, knowing full well that it couldn't be the pay. He was still wondering how the place was able to stay open.

She just stared straight ahead, wondering the same thing itself, refusing to look at the truth that laid in front of her. A part of her wanted to snap at him, to scold him for breaking one of their unspoken rules: no questions. Maybe that was just her rule. She never asked questions, always expecting the same in return. She didn't ask her boss why he was gone all the time, and he didn't ask why she wanted to be in the diner all the time. She didn't ask him why he only paid her in cash, and he didn't ask why she accepted it.

"It feels more safe."

"Safer than in the daytime?"

"Yes."

"Safer than with other people?"

"Yes."

The words between them were slowly spoken, both careful as if they were speaking a new language, not wanting to be translated wrong. He didn't look surprised. He didn't look confused. He looked more like someone who was almost certain of something, but that .01% of uncertainty was too much to carry on with. She was okay with it. She lived in a state of constant discomfort. It was one of the many reasons she was able to work late.

"Most people like that. Working during the day and with other people. People usually feel safer under those circumstances," he said, taking another bite of his omelet, chewing slowly, carefully, giving her time to answer.

This time she didn't wait long to answer. What was the point when she was going to give it to him anyways?

"People like the daytime because they feel like they can see what they're afraid of. They make the mistake of not realizing that in the light, they too can be seen," she explained, staring more at his plate than at him.

"And for the people? You explained the day time, but not the people," he added.

She drew in a shaky breath. This was getting personal. People don't ask if other people like to be around people or not in the way he did. He was wondering why. "Why?" was a personal question. "Why" asks for cause, and with cause there is explanation, thorough enough to understand. She wasn't sure if she wanted him to understand her.

"There's freedom when you're alone."

"Freedom doesn't mean good or bad."

"Freedom can be good or bad, though," she pointed out. "Depends on what you're trying to be freed of, I guess."

"What are you trying to be freed of?"

She hesitated. For a moment, she wondered if she misunderstood what he was asking, but he kept staring, straight at her, straight through her. She felt so bare, so open that he might already know the answer to his question. He was already acting with more certitude than he originally had. It threw her off enough for her to begin to grasp at her skirt as she had when they first met. She wasn't comfortable with this amount of discomfort.

"I'm not sure," she answered honestly. She was going to say something along the lines of "my past." Then again, who wasn't afraid of that? The difference between her and other people was that she quite literally ran from it. She packed her bags and left everything behind. She cut all her ties, burnt all her bridges, and took off. She went from place to place. Sometimes just for the night, sometimes longer. Somehow, someway, she found the diner. It wasn't meant to be a stop. She had came in to fill up her car, grab a bite. She served a plate to a man who looked like he could barely stand up, and the cook, now her boss, looked at her and said if she wanted a job as a waitress, she could have it.

It wasn't a job she expected, or really wanted, but it was something. She was running low on money. Low enough to know that it was time to hunker down for a bit. A bit turned into a month, then a year, then years.

And here she was.

The diner fell into her lap like fate.

Only, it didn't feel like fate.

She tried to think of why all these circumstances were just right for her. She tried to find meaning in it.

 _She tried..._

Whatever meaning there may be, it wasn't for her. She wasn't the end result, she felt.

She was just another circumstance.

"Guess I just want to be free of fear," she decided on.

The man narrowed his eyes at her.

"I don't think you're free of it."

"No. I'm not free of it," she agreed. "The shackles are just a little looser, and that's enough."

She was never the kind to ask for much.

She was the kind to as for just a little less.

His eyes wouldn't leave her face. She would have felt like the night had gone still around them if it weren't for the crack of thunder and the heavy fall of rain.

Time was almost up, and she didn't know what that would bring.

Looking out the window - it seemed like a good place to look if it wasn't at him. It felt less rude. It felt like a natural place to look at, rather than just a place to avoid looking at him with - she noticed how light it was. Usually, she couldn't see past the few pumps at the gas station, but now, she could make out the trees thanks to the lightning. Their tops bending with the rain and the gusts of wind. They looked like waves on the ocean, and the passing cars, every now and then, driving slowly, trying to see in front of them, were ships sailing by.

"It's almost ten," the man said in a solemn tone. He sounded like he was mourning, like he was some relative waiting by her death bed. She wondered if he knew something she didn't. She wondered, for the first time, if he was dangerous. She liked feeling in control. It's why she cleaned so much. She liked washing away all the dirtiness that came in. She liked the idea of cleansing the place. She almost felt clean herself afterwards.

With him, things were different. She didn't feel like she was in control.

That didn't necessarily mean he was either.

Looking at the messy man before her, she struggled to picture him in charge. He wasn't commanding. He was just a guy watching the world turn, just like her.

But, he wasn't watching now. This wasn't the silent way that they admired each other from across the diner. This was different. He was different.

He was participating.

He was participating and he wanted her to participate to.

She had to wonder what sparked this change, but she didn't know enough about him to come to any conclusion. For all she knew, he was just like her. Someone trying to go through the motions with brief moments of change to remind oneself of how life was supposed to be. Maybe this was a brief moment of change. Maybe they would go back to normal after tonight.

"What happens at ten?" she heard herself ask.

There was a spark in his eyes, as if there was a thrill to the quiet question. She almost mistook her own excitement for fear. The rushing heartbeat, the sweaty palms, the way her body was so ready to spring to life. This was the confusion of being human, she supposed. Many emotions have overlapping symptoms. Self diagnosis was the only way to begin to treat those emotions, and even then, it was shooting in the dark. Yet, she enjoyed it. She couldn't remember the last time she drew a breath into her lungs and felt even remotely alive. And all from a look in his eyes. Not the upturn of lips - though, she would argue that they were just a little bit curled - or his standing - his posture did straighten some, but barely enough for her, up close, to notice. Just his eyes. They were back to the clear blue color she pictured often. There was comfort in that, enough comfort to where she felt more at ease with whatever he decided to answer with.

How often had she imagined him looking at her like this? The most plausible answer was that she would cook something good one day, and he would smile, more than he was now.

She blamed her still lackluster cooking for that. Adequacy, though able to stomach, was not something to smile about. One could eat cardboard and be just as happy as he was with the omelet he just ate.

"I ask if you want a drink," he answered, lips curling a little more.

She felt warmth gather in her cheeks, a smile bigger and more unapologetic than his forming on her face.

She had never been asked out before. Well, she _had_. She just never was asked out by someone she wanted to be asked out by.

She never liked anyone enough.

It caused her stress in her high school years. She tried liking people. She tried talking herself into more than one date out of social obligation, but in the end, she was always broken up with, but never broken up over the break up. She was never persuasive enough to come to care for someone more than she cared for other people. She never cared for someone like they deserved to be cared for in a relationship, or even in the prospect of one. There was relief in the realization that she was capable of, well, _liking_ someone. She felt, in this moment, as if she were outside, letting heavy rains wash her free of all that troubled her.

She opened her mouth, and only choked air came out as she struggled for a response. Her only consolation was the amused look on his face at her stammering.

Finally, she stepped back, closing her eyes and, still smiling, taking a moment to breathe. Once she collected herself, she opened her eyes, and she saw him, standing there. Smiling.

"Where?" she asked, raising a brow.

He adjusted his glasses, a breathy laugh leaving him as if he were in disbelief.

She struggled to imagine why. Despite his rough appearance, he looked well off. She'd seen the vehicle he drove. Gas alone, it cost more. It was shiny, free of any dents. Then there was his appearance. On weekdays, he wore nice clothes, a coat, vest, tie, even nice shoes, the kind that weren't meant to be dirtied by the slush of mud outside. He'd let it slip that he had a house one day. He mentioned that he had a window replaced when tried moving a shelf that tilted over too much. She lived in a small apartment where the only thing that separated her bed from a combined eating area and lounging space - it couldn't be called a living room - was a room divider. Her closet was as small as one belonging in a college dorm. She was paid little, and lived mostly off of whatever could be spared from the diner.

If anyone was supposed to be surprised, it would be her.

Not to say she wasn't surprised.

By the smile on her face and way she was completely flustered by him was enough to tell that she was.

"My house."

"Your house?" she echoed, narrowing her eyes skeptically. As happy as she was, she still had a hold on her mind, and it reminded her of a few simple rules to follow when it came to the likes of strangers.

"I was under the impression that you aren't fond of being around many people. Saturday night is a very busy one at bars," he reasoned. She accepted that. She was a bartender once. The surplus of people on weekends were the very reason she left that job behind.

But he didn't know that. He didn't know she wasn't fond of populated places until this night. Then again, knowing his watchful eyes, she knew he could have came to that conclusion on his own. She was working in a diner, late at night, with only the company of him and the occasional trucker that stopped for gas. There were many jobs in the city, and here she was. It sounded more likelier that he came to that conclusion on his own the more she thought on it.

"You're scared."

"I'm not," she said quickly.

He looked relieved by that.

"I'm not scared of you," she clarified. "Not really."

"You'd be right to. You don't know much about me. The expected way to go about this would be to meet in a public place, where we test out the waters until we feel safe."

"That _is_ the expected way," she agreed, nodding as she moved to clean off his plate. She turned on the facet, waiting for him to continue.

"Do you feel safe?" he asked. She didn't need to look at him to know that he was raising an eyebrow. She supposed that it was a question worthy of an eyebrow raise.

Did she feel safe?

Did she feel safe _with him?_

She knew her answer already.

As the hour hand moved over ten, as the lights of a co-worker's vehicle nearly blinded her from the side, she walked towards the pantry. She found her bag, turned out the lights to the pantry and made her way back into the diner, back to where _he_ waited.

The bell on the door rung as a man in the old yellow uniform of Benny's Stop and Dine came in. He didn't ask questions. He didn't greet her. She doubted he even knew her name.

By the time her replacement was behind the counter, she was in front of _him_.

"I'll follow you," she insisted, rummaging through her purse for her keys. When she finally procured them, she looked to him with a wavering smile. "You know, in my head it sounds like a bad idea... Going to a stranger's house for drinks."

"Sounds worse when you say stranger," he pointed out, holding the door open for her. She moved forward. Just when one foot was beyond the threshold, she heard him say something incoherent. She turned her head, looking at him curiously.

"Will," he said, more clearly. "My name is Will Graham."

"Will Graham's house," she said, testing out the name while she could.

A ghost of a smile fell on her lips.

"You're right. It does sound worse when you say stranger."

* * *

 _ **So, there it is! The first chapter of my first fanfiction!**_

 _ **I know it goes by slowly, but I really felt like it was necessary to establish my oc's footing before diving into the full plot of the show.**_

 ** _Anyways, um, if you made it this far, thank you!_**

 ** _I hope it was decent because I do plan on continuing this..._**

 ** _So, uh, I guess that's it for now!_**


	2. Chapter 2

**All rights to Hannibal (TV) belong to NBC.**

* * *

 _ **Will Graham's House, Wolf Trap, Virginia**_

He didn't live far. Almost as far as her apartment was, only in the opposite direction, further from the city. She should have felt anxious about that. Like he said, people like being around people. Still, she couldn't help but feel more at ease.

The first thought that crossed her mind upon pulling up to the house that stood so brightly in the middle of the dark was how right she was. He was better off than her. Not that it was particularly difficult to be. The second thing she thought of was how at ease he was.

Climbing out of his vehicle alone, he seemed more fluid in his movements. Less nervous. She was willing to put money on him having forgotten about her in the sheer relief of having made it home.

 _Home_.

She wondered what that was like, to have the safety of a home.

It was different than a house. The line between "house" and "home" were as clear as can be to those that hadn't the luxury of both. She had a house before. She had an apartment. For all intents and purposes, she did live in a house. A good house, just a bit bigger than Will Graham's. But that place wasn't home. When she was afraid, when she had to sleep with fear's cold hands wrapped around her throat, she did not seek solace in the memory of that house. But she could see that this was _his_. Just looking at the place, it was his lighthouse in dark times.

She felt like she was violating sacred ground the second her muddy shoes hit the damp wooden porch. She was so consumed with watching him that she tripped over a step, bumping into the railing with her hip. She was too taken by her hopes that he hadn't seen her to care for the throbbing pain in her side that would later sport a bruise. If he saw her, he didn't show it. She couldn't decide if that made her feel better or worse.

"So this is your place," she sighed, staring in awe. He gave her a look that she didn't recognize. Somewhere between curiosity and pity, if she had to take a guess. Before he could respond, the sound of scratching came. Then barks. Her eyes lit up, darting to Will. "You have a dog?"

The scratching and barks were followed by even more.

"Dogs!" she corrected herself, a crooked smile on her face.

Will sheepishly rubbed the back of his neck, looking at the door and then at her as if she found out some dirty secret. She almost apologized for having said it, but thought better of it. She hadn't said something wrong. Just a simple fact. So why did she feel so bad?

She blamed it on his eyes.

"I should have told you," he said, more to himself than her. She was too taken with the sounds of the animals to think of how right or wrong he was. He took the smile on her face as a good sign. "I take it you like dogs?" he asked, digging into his jacket, trying to find his keys.

It was a good few minutes before he found them. She hadn't answered him. He opened the door, hoping for the best. And there they went. His collection of strays swarming out, all happily welcoming him home, circling him, nipping at his feet. Then one found her, and the attention was drawn to the now kneeling woman that looked just as eager as his dogs. She said things like "hello" and "hey there" to a few, laughing at the feeling of a few trying to lick her. Her happiness was infectious, but even in it, he felt somewhat bad for her. At this rate, she would leave smelling just like he did.

The thought stirred a bit of pride in him.

"Sorry, if their hair gets all over you. I've been meaning to do some brushing but..."

He didn't finish.

She didn't know if he didn't have a reason for having not already done it or if he simply didn't want to share. Either way, she didn't press further.

"I don't mind," she promised, looking up from a particularly demanding one of his dogs. As loving as Will was, there was nothing quite as exciting as a friendly stranger, especially one smelling like her.

Will disappeared back into his house first. She politely waited on the porch until he welcomed her in after making sure everything was to his satisfaction. She didn't mind. The rain had lightened up, and she had the comfort of finally having company that she could trust.

The comfort of animal companions could not be overstated. There was a security in them. There was no deception, no hidden intentions behind an animal's actions. If it liked you, it was friendly, if it didn't, it wasn't. Animals were honest, upholding a decency that society both strives to have, yet continues to disregard. For that, Will Graham was better off than her again. Her apartment didn't allow animals.

Then there was the comfort of living far from the city. As hard as she listened, she couldn't hear a single car. The silence should have rattled her. Once again, she found comfort. Thankfully, she was too charmed to be envious.

She felt a pang of sadness over having to return to her apartment later. It felt like a fairy tale gone wrong. There was no escapism in having to return there, but at least she had the temporary relief that Will gave her. For that, she hugged one of the biggest dogs, savoring the feeling of being without loneliness.

Following inside, she found herself memorizing everything in sight.

Will spoke very carefully, as if he was worried he'd provoke her. She noticed he did this sometimes, always holding back, choking out words sometimes in fear that the carelessness that came with familiarity would spook her. She had to wonder if he thought that she was fragile. _She_ had to wonder if she was fragile.

The thought made her cringe. She certainly didn't _want_ to be fragile.

 _Maybe fragile is the wrong word_ , she thought.

The more she thought on it, the more she didn't feel as though she were fragile.

She couldn't have made it this far if she was fragile.

She was just anxious.

She was the kind of anxious that some people are born with; the kind that instinctively look over their shoulders constantly. The kind that feel, no matter how many times they look and make sure that they're not, like they're being watched. It was as if fear itself found her as a newborn, slipping into her nursery in the dead of night like some thick black fog slipping through the cracks of her window, filling the room, flooding through her mouth and nose until she was drowning in it. And it stayed with her, torturing her until morning came. Instead of leaving, chased away by the light, that dark fog slipped into her, deciding to feed off of her very essence like some sort of parasite.

Perhaps that's why she functioned well enough with it. She didn't feel as much of the pain of anxiousness. _Well_ , she felt it, but she was always so full of it that there wasn't any more to fill her most of the time. Instead of shattering her, her fear fueled her, more often than not. And that was how she got here to begin with.

She was spooked.

She was just a girl in a prison, watching the world go by, too scared to leave. But, as time went on, her fear of leaving was overcome with her fear of staying, her fear of withering away until nothing but that fear was in her. She felt like she was imploding, quietly feeling as each organ of her soul died off, making her less and less human, less and less alive.

She felt like she couldn't breathe anymore, as if she couldn't take anything except that thick, dark fog into her lungs. It got so bad that she often found herself sitting on the shower floor until the hot water turned cold, only able to tell that she was crying by the warmth of her tears amidst the cold running water.

So, she left.

She had been packed, ready to go back to her hometown for the summer. She told herself that she would just go for a quick drive. "Twenty minutes tops," she told her roommate. A twenty minute trip turned into an hour, then two. She wasn't driving in any particular direction, only farther and farther from home. It was just her and the long road to nowhere, an endless roadtrip.

Of course, it wasn't endless.

She found herself in Virginia, which was far, but not as far as she had gone in the first two years since she'd gotten in that car and took off. Yet, she'd gone farther mentally. She'd traded cars, selling hers for a cheaper one in order to stay lost longer. Her hair had grown back some since she chopped it off, scared of being recognized. She'd developed this sense of self preservation in her time on the road. She trusted in her gut feelings, and more often than not, she avoided situations where she could have ended up in a much more terrified state. She knew this from when she first started working at Benny's, back when there was a working television that was often on some news network. She'd seen the faces of people she'd passed by. She'd see those same faces on mugshots or previous photographs flashed across the screen with the caption of so and so's "victim" or something like that. She remembered when she began looking up the places she lingered in longer than a night. Sometimes nothing happened, sometimes _something_ happened.

Eventually, she felt fear begin to mess with the way she functioned again, so she stopped looking into things. She told her boss that the television was wasting money, and before long, the television was gone, and she didn't have to be plagued by whatever tragedies were going on in the world, and she didn't have to worry about every single stranger that walked into the diner.

Not fragile, just plagued with an acute survival instinct.

Perhaps that's what Will Graham was tuning into.

"Do you have a preference of drink?" he asked her politely, leading her to his kitchen, taking note of how her eyes wondered over his house with the sort of wonder that children had when arriving at a theme park. She didn't hear him at first, forcing him to ask again. There was the same sound of caution in his voice, more towards him than her. Looking up from a picture of his favorite river to fish in. She looked so mystified. He felt as if he were intruding on the most pious of prayers. He felt every guilty ounce of sin at breaking her from it.

"What do you have?" she asked, not with a preference in mind, he figured by the tone of her voice.

Will's face lost some of its color. He hadn't really planned this. He didn't have a variety of drinks. He wasn't prepared to offer much. Still, he listed off the types of alcohol he had, even the non-alcoholic, feeling as though he ought give a little more options than the count of three fingers. Her eyes didn't catch with the same kind of recognition as someone who had a preference. At first he thought he was simply missing the kind that she liked, but after a moment, looking at her more closely, he saw that she didn't recognize any. He felt a twinge of worry as he saw this. He hadn't asked her age, and the more he looked at her, the more ambiguous she looked. He was certain that she was beyond the legal limit, but there was still a sliver of caution.

"How old did you say you were?"

"I didn't."

Will felt his lips twitch, feeling rude at the feathery tone of voice she carried, but by the look of her face, she took no offense, simply staring at him, having given an honest response. It must have been his discomfort that triggered her to answer him anyways.

"I'm past the legal limit, Will."

There was something in the way that she said his name that rubbed him the wrong way. After all, it was a standard question that he figured would be okay to ask, as she didn't look particularly old. This was how things were with her though. She was always evasive and vague in the diner. He had once the audacity to point out that she hadn't a nametag and despite her smile, he felt nothing except coldness from her. He would have mentioned it, but he had motivations not to. Hoping that if he let go of this question, she'd give more answers. He told himself that people were more relaxed after a few drinks, and she was no exception to that.

So they drank.

He drank, mostly.

She was sipping, and he knew right away that she wasn't the kind to spend on alcohol. Judging by her car, by the way she looked at his home, he was only left to assume she was the frugal kind. The price of frugality was tolerance, and she was no fool. She was pacing herself. That enough, he was certain.

The problem that rested was the silence. It was a direct silence. A thick silence. The kind of silence that neither were fond of. There was no counter to flee behind. Only two chairs, opposite to one another, forcing them to look at each other. She had to have some resilience, keeping herself silent long enough for him to impatiently break it himself. He took back the fragility he thought her to have because of this.

"Under normal circumstances, this is the part where we get to know each other."

He meant it jokingly, but he grimaced at how rude he sounded. He assumed that she was either forgiving enough to act as though she wasn't offended or - he prayed for the second option - she didn't take it as sharply. Whatever it was, she digested his words, looking to the ceiling, as if she would find answers there, and after some time, gathering her thoughts, she looked back to him, nodding. This time when she lifted the glass to her lips, she took three large gulps. Will didn't know if he should have been taken back by this or not. He simply told himself that this was why he invited her for drinks.

"Then tell me about yourself," she said, looking at him with expecting eyes. Will's lips twitched, having expected her to offer up some information on herself rather than ask of him. It was hypocritical, and he knew that. He simply thought it was a cruel way to end the night, telling her what he did, scaring off some pretty little waitress.

Something else had changed though. She sat straighter. Her back wasn't touching the chair. She had a well practiced posture, one that made him question where it came from due to how effortless it was. It was the kind of posture that came from practice from a young age. By the way he assumed her to live, he doubted that she was taught posture. There was little time to practice courtesy and etiquette when money was tight.

Whatever was behind it didn't matter. All that did matter was the directness with which she addressed him. It was a side of her that he hadn't anticipated.

At least he was seeing more of her.

He sat back in the chair and pressed the heels of his aching hands against his aching eyes, trying to think of what to say. He knew he couldn't damn well start the night with informing her that he was a special agent used for his ability to conjure up the mind of serial killers and psychopaths, two things that were tragically not mutually exclusive. He thought on telling her that he was a teacher, but feared her asking what he taught. Teaching forensic classes for the FBI was far from what he imagined were the people she saw weekly - he knew she hadn't interacted with people daily as their nights were often uninterrupted by other people- and he didn't want to make her feel alienated or out of place. He was all too familiar with the feeling.

"I like dogs."

The laugh that filled the silence was enough to shatter whatever tension was resting between them.

Will hadn't meant it to be a joke. He was hopelessly avoiding personal answers, and fled to something that would unlikely scare her away. The only problem was that what he said was already painfully obvious.

He watched her, the way she quaked with an eruption of laughter, the way color bloomed on her cheeks, and the flash of white that came with a smile broader than the shy ones she often spared for him from across the diner. He liked her laugh...

"Okay, I deserve that, I guess," she sighed, cheeks still pink, recovering from having made a sound that, despite not knowing her long, he knew she didn't make often. Her shoulders relaxed some, giving a slight slope from her neck rather than a harsh angle that read only of paranoia. "I guess I'll give you the basics," she said, still smiling, but the light didn't reach her eyes. He wondered why she even bothered, but it wasn't like her to be rude either. She was like snow. One was too busy admiring its beauty, reveling in the feeling of freshness, that they didn't realize they were buried in it until it was too late.

She didn't speak up at first. He supposed it was because she wasn't used to it. He could empathize, and not just because of what he did. He understood it personally.

"My name is Bella. I was born in the winter-" She stopped looking at him, looking instead to the empty glass in her hand. "... I enjoy the sunrise, long showers, and I, too, like dogs," she listed off quickly, following it up with a challenging nod, as if to tell him it was his turn, as if she was done for the day.

It wouldn't be that easy.

He noticed that she only gave one name, which might be a first name or nickname, rendering a good google search useless. She said she was born in winter, which only narrowed the search to "Kate's, born in between December and March." Sunrises and long showers were nothing personal - Although, he had to wonder as to why she liked the sunrise, yet avoided the day - just as her fondness of dogs, which she might have thrown in as a joke, yet still avoided telling him anything new.

Will was torn between admiration and envy.

"Don't get too personal on me," he said in a sour tone, adjusting his glasses out of habit.

She - _"Bella,"_ he reminded himself - made a face, shrugging.

He wondered if this was how the night would go, both trying to find a sense of friendship, yet still plagued by feelings of mistrust. He knew his own reasons for not giving away anything personal. He told himself that it was better to let her know him in person instead of some online tabloid. He did have to wonder why she gave so little. He thought she might be on the run, but quickly ruled that out. Even if her eyes were constantly sweeping over her surroundings, she looked more like a doe, keeping an eye out for danger at the slightest of sounds.

He still wondered if something happened to her, something to make her as she was. He didn't want to think of that. She had a sweet face.

He thought back on Alana Bloom.

 _That_ woman was a beauty. With rich brown hair, eyes that looked as beautiful as the sky on a clear day, and a smile resting on shapely lips. She respected his space, always avoiding being alone, which he didn't know whether to appreciate or take mild offense to. It was easier to forgive a woman with a smile like the one she wore.

Bella was a beauty, but not in the same respect as Alana.

She looked rougher.

It wasn't due to the worn in uniform she wore that made her out to be that way. It was her hair. It was shorter than the long and regal curls Alana sported. Her's fell into waves, but not intentionally. More from having it pulled up and out of the way. It was asymmetric more often than not. Knotted despite its shortness. Though she kept her distance, something she had in common with Dr. Bloom, when she was close enough, he could make out the fain scars on her face. One just above her right eyebrow, resting on top of her right cheekbone, and another along the line of her left cheekbone. They were straight, clean, something that had been done quickly, happening before she could brace herself. They matched others, on the posterior side of her forearms. Those were straight, clean, but crossing, as if being cut quickly in a fluid "x" movement. It wasn't on the inside of her arms. He recognized the placing of those scars.

She was bracing herself when she had them.

Her jacket was black, loose enough to be comfortable, but not enough for someone to grab onto with ease. It was always unzipped, no matter how cold, as if she were ready to slip it off in the case that someone ever did grab onto her. Her shoes weren't like the sleek and sharp heels that Alana, and many other women were fond of. It was either brown boots that were always tied twice with the shoelaces tucked in, or it was tennis shoes that were equally worn in, shoelaces also tucked inside. Ready to run.

She wore no jewelry. He caught sight of a co-worker giving her a small golden cross on a thin matching chain, given to her by her boss. "To protect you," the old Spanish man told her before she took over her shift.

Will never saw her wear it.

She had accepted it politely. She took it off the second the man was gone, placing it into her purse. If Will had to take a guess, it was because it was a necklace, loosely hanging. While she wore it, she kept touching it, adjusting it. She looked uncomfortable with something around her neck.

He was beginning to believe something _did_ happen.

His mind went first to abuse. With her discomfort around him, and the wariness in her eyes even when she looked at her boss, he wondered if a man attacked her. He wondered if some savage raised a blade and furiously cut at her, if she fled from wherever she came from in fear. The image of her, fear in her eyes, cowering from a man, knotted his stomach.

He wanted to believe that she earned those scars from a normal childhood. He wanted to believe that they were from falling out of a tree, cutting herself on branches, or that she was in some class in school and missed out on some protective equipment.

But those scars were too similar to be from different accidents. And if they shared the same cause, he doubted it was that, an accident.

"Tell me about yourself," she insisted. Her voice was tight, as if she had been holding her breath for too long.

Will nodded, knowing full well that this was to be expected.

It would be hypocritical to ask her to share personal facts about herself. They barely knew each other. However, he also knew it was hypocritical of her to expect a personal answer when she gave as little as she had. Moderately socially maladjusted, they both were. There had to be some comfort in that.

"You know my name," he began, the right corner of his lips twitching towards what might have been a smile - half of a smile...

"Will Graham," she recalled with a soft smile on her lips. It was the way she said it. The sound of it felt like religion, it felt of both salvation and condemnation.

"I like..."

He sighed, shaking his head. He felt an echo of a migraine from earlier. There was too much effort that needed to go into subtle evasion. He couldn't stomach putting himself through it again.

"I don't like dancing around the obvious," he confessed, looking at her with hopeful eyes, as if she would see him and all his messy and broken parts and have enough mercy to bend.

"You may not like it, but you do make a formidable performance."

Will deserved the sharp tongued reply.

Nothing in life ever came easy, so why would this? His words sounded clumsy and empty in the quiet and warm kitchen. Out of the two of them, neither was dignified and bold enough to take charge and make demands of the other. They were both too messy, battered, and ruined to trust themselves with being likable enough to actually deserve something without paying a price so high that they didn't want it anymore.

"As do you," he said after some time. She only gave a lame shrug, taking no offense.

She shifted in her seat once more. He took liberty upon himself to fill their empty glasses. He invited her for "drinks", and both were in desperation for more than one glass's worth of courage. She quickly drank more, and when her glass hit the table with an awful _thunk_ he half imagined her to take her leave early, both of them unsatisfied, but too polite to simply take what they wanted.

He was paid well for his imagination, but imagination could only go so far.

He wasn't clairvoyant.

"We're too afraid," she said, looking him in the eyes.

Will said nothing.

He couldn't deny her words, but he figured it best not to affirm them either.

"We're tiptoeing, hoping not to to crack the thin ice beneath us," she sighed, shaking her head and taking another drink. "People usually invite someone over for drinks to get to know them better."

"Are we not already doing that?" he asked in a bitter tone and sour expression, both geared towards himself.

"If I didn't know any better, I'd say you share the same fear of getting to know each other."

"Probably best that we take our time. You've already gone to the home of a stranger. It would be in poor taste to get too personal. You're nothing if not careful," he said, showing how close he'd been watching her.

Her face twitched, lips pursing, as his words bit into her. He regretted his words instantly, wanting to apologize, but stuck in fear that if he did, it would only cement them in history. Acknowledging something made it feel too real for him. Instead, he brought his glass to his lips and took a big gulp, as if the burning sensation of alcohol would be enough penance to earn him some forgiveness.

"It would be reckless to begin bonding so soon. For all you know, I could be a terrible person," he said. A rotten taste fell on his tongue as he said it. "Terrible person." The world was in no demand for terrible people. He liked to think of himself as a compassionate and almost-balanced man. Yet, in light of recent events, he wondered if he was. He always tried not to bring work home as a teacher, but with returning to becoming a criminal profiler, he felt as though his work was beginning to follow him home.

"So soon," she echoed. "For one, time is an illusion and I bond fast. Secondly, who knows, we might both benefit from talking."

Will frowned at this.

He knew her enough to know she wasn't comfortable with talking. The beginning of this poor excuse of a conversation was enough to prove it.

Will felt anger bubble inside him. He wondered if she took in the messiness of his house, of his person, and saw him as Alana did. Something broken, something to be pitied. Something that needed to describe the shapes of the monsters that were devouring him, hoping that it would ward them off, giving him enough distance to recover. She didn't want him to get too close to the minds of the people he put away.

"If you're trying to tell me that it gets better by _sharing_ and _feeling_ -"

"Oh, God, no. It doesn't," she said quickly, shaking her head. If Will didn't agree with her, he might have smiled. "What I'm trying to say is that the rule of survival is to stick together. People are better together because, well, speaking from personal experience, when we're all alone, we're hopelessly lost."

She stared with unfocused eyes at the amber colored liquid. He wondered what was going on inside her head.

She was too.

This was so unlike her.

Ever since she left, she kept her head down and mouth shut. She vanished. She got in a car, no map, no direction, and no destination. She spent so long on the road that she melted into it. Into the gravel, the tar beneath. She sunk into the thick blackness of it, until nothing and no one could find her.

Then he came along.

He found her, covered in black, willingly drowning. She was content in the dark. She forgot the worst in life, and the best. She forgot herself. Her very essence was unraveling, and she would have let it. Yet, in the dark of night, she thought she saw the moon. It wasn't as rich as sunlight, but it reminded her of what it felt like to be alive. Just enough hope filled her, so she reached for it, just entertaining the idea of being more than empty.

She thought that she wouldn't be able to grasp onto anything. She thought that she was reaching into empty space. It was a safe dream, one that she thought would only just be that, a dream. She thought she would find nothing and when the dream was crushed enough, she thought she would be able to go back to the machine like routine that was her life.

But she didn't grasp onto nothing.

It was him.

"I thought you liked being lost."

He didn't. He just wanted to hear her say it.

She rubbed her face with her eyes. Her head was clearing bit by bit. She knew what he wanted to hear. Perhaps he wanted to hear her say it because he needed enough courage, a safety net to take the jump with her. She knew that's what she wanted, but his interest was enough for her to take the jump. Then again, she didn't need a safety net. She had nothing to lose. She was indifferent. She was used to it enough to go back to nothing. She knew how to keep her head straight. She knew enough to avoid looking back long enough to stop her from going forward.

Did he?

Her guesses would say no.

His dogs were enough evidence.

He collected strays.

Was he trying to collect her?

"No one does."

The three words exhausted her. It tired her out like hours worth of crying, but in the end she felt relieved. She felt like she was breathing again, finally being open, honest.

The door was barely cracked open, but she felt like she was exposed to him. A part of her told her to shut the door, to lean her back against it, to barricade herself inside and loose track of time until hers ended. She was used to playing the waiting game. At least, that's what she told herself. So, what did it hurt to tell him? What did it hurt to give him the safety net he needed?

"You look tired, but you're no stranger to staying up this late. I don't think you stay up because you just love the nighttime. You keep the company of dogs. I didn't see any pictures of family or friends. None of even you, so my guess is that you are just as alone as I am."

She wasn't wrong.

"But you invited me here," she pointed out, finally raising her eyes to look at him. Eyes bright with something he couldn't recognize on her. He wouldn't call it hope, but something in close relation to it. "You invited someone else into your safe place, so, that being said, I think you don't like being alone either."

Will shifted in his seat, sitting straighter. There was a sense of pride filling him as she spoke.

She was observant. She looked at her surroundings, drawing on them, trying to understand him. He found comfort in that. She was looking for answers just like him, and that meant that he wasn't betraying everything he was feeling. It meant that he wasn't alone. For a moment, he felt himself look at her with hope, and that made his eyes burn, wanting to let out a river of hot tears. He viciously suppressed the feeling, instead focusing on the proposition before him.

He almost cringed at the thought. "Proposition" was the wrong word. It made it sound too professional, and he already had a professional to talk to. Yet, there was something strange, too strange, between them to call it friendship. Whatever it was, it was more appealing than a majority of relationships he managed to cling to throughout the years.

She was just like him, and that was the appeal.

"So," she began, lifting her head with an almost pathetic attempt at looking confident. In the end she looked just as hopelessly desperate for companionship as he. Both starved. "What do you say?"

Will looked down at his glass. This was why he asked her. It wasn't just because he needed a drink and missed her company. He wanted more. He didn't want someone who could report back to Jack. He didn't want someone who would come to their own conclusions before hearing him. He wanted someone who would know him first, who would trust him first. He wanted to be looked at like an actual person and not a mental case waiting to happen.

And she was offering it.

A grin formed on his lips.

Smiling, he lifted his glass, just as she did.

"To..." He didn't know what he was celebrating. Friendship? The death of loneliness? The success rate of alcohol breaking barriers?

"To liking dogs," she said with a lopsided smile.

He raised a brow.

"If you didn't like dogs, I wouldn't have trusted you."

She was joking, and he knew it.

"You came to a stranger's house," he said, waving his finger around, as if to point to proof that was all around them.

"Nonsense," she said hastily with a light sounding laugh. After it subsided, all that remained was that same small smile that was more inviting than a thousand, teeth flashing, smiles. "It just sound's worse when you say stranger," she added, echoing his words from earlier.

"So, what would happen if I didn't like dogs?"

"I'd probably ask why you have so many."

He rolled his eyes, shaking his head.

When was the last time that he felt so...

He felt lighter. He felt as though there were a weight lifted from his shoulders. He felt _normal_.

He could easily picture it as he brought the glass to his lips, feeling the burn of alcohol cleanse him of words left unsaid.

He could pictured them, drinking, not drinking, in the kitchen or in the living room. She would tell him about her day - her night. He would tell her about his day. That was when he almost choked on his drink. He could picture himself telling her about his day. He could picture actually _talking_ to her. It brought a sense of giddiness within his chest. He quickly shoved it down, drowning it in the alcohol. He could save hope for when he was alone. For now, he would just enjoy her company. He would enjoy not being alone.

"Let me try again," she began, causing him to set his glass down, not wanting to miss what she was going to say. "My name is Bella. I'm a waitress at Benny's Stop and Dine-"

"What a surprise," he said in a flat tone, raising a brow, having expected to get something more detailed, more personal. He was expecting her to be more trusting.

"Please, let me finish," she pleaded.

He held up his hands in surrender, which warranted another smile. There was a foreign warmth spreading in his chest.

"My name is Bella. I work at Benny's Stop and Dine.I enjoy the sunrise, long showers, and I like dogs."

He chuckled at that.

" _But_ , getting personal," she took a deep breath, looking at the old white ceiling, as if she was searching for something to say, wading through all her thoughts and memories. Finally, when she decided on one, she lowered her eyes, meeting his. A smile - No. A smirk forming where a smile once was. "I dropped out of college," she said with a slight laugh.

She sounded like she didn't believe it herself.

Will was somewhat taken back.

He hadn't thought that she was the kind to be in college, but he didn't think that she wouldn't be. He didn't give it much thought at all. Though, the more he thought on it, all the books she read, how she picked up on the world around her, he could so clearly picture her on some university campus, in a classroom, finishing degrees.

But she didn't.

"Why did you drop out?" he asked, leaning forward and resting his elbows on the table. She shook her head, pressing her lips together. He knew she wouldn't give him much. Not tonight, at least. But, at least that was something. She nodded at him again, this time he knew that she was expecting him to give something personal in return. So, like her, he looked to the ceiling, thinking on all the things he hadn't told her, and how many of those weren't too heavy to bare. "I teach forensic classes."

"Like at a college?" she asked, both of her eyebrows raised.

He knew that she didn't deserve any more than she gave him, but they were supposed to be trusting each other.

"Like for the FBI," he answered with a grimace.

A breathy laugh of disbelief escaped her lips. This time in more disbelief than when she admitted to dropping out of college. He could almost feel the thick awkward fog growing between them. He watched as she swallowed, nodding as she digested his words. A smile broke out onto her face.

"Okay. Well, I guess you probably think I'm some failure or something..."

"Do you think I would think that?" he asked, not believing her for a second. To his delight, she shook her head.

"You don't judge people easily."

She didn't know how true those words were. As sweet as they were probably intended to be, they only tasted of bitter truth.

She pushed her empty glass away, reaching for her bag which rested on the floor beside her feet.

He sat up straighter, defensively. His chair made a loud scraping noise as he scooted back, ready to stand.

She froze.

The smile was gone. Her eyes were on him.

Once again, he saw the doe.

Her back was still curved downwards, causing her to crane neck to look at him. She was ready to turn her head and run. Body already pointed in the right direction. Away.

He froze, watching intently, regretting even the slightest movement.

He saw her relax. He saw her recognize his face, the look in his eyes. She recognized that he wasn't a threat.

Still, she stood.

"You're leaving."

The words tasted like poison. It tasted like the end of a good memory.

"Yes." She looked to the way they came from before looking at him. "I can't stay at a stranger's house," she added with an knowing smile. "Walk me to the front door?"

When he stood up, his chair fell backwards.

He looked frantically from the chair to her. An apology rested on the tip of his tongue, but died before a breath could leave his lungs at the sight of her. Forgiveness already in her eyes.

It was too brief, like some alignment of the astronomical bodies that only came once a lifetime, and then she was gone, walking towards the front door.

He abandoned the chair, following her. He stopped her before she was at the steps outside.

"Wait!" he called after her.

She stopped, turning only her upper body.

Always ready to run.

He stared, realizing he hadn't anything to say when he stopped her.

"Yes?"

"I'm not a stranger," he blurted out, a hopeless smile of his own.

"No... You're not," she agreed with the brightest smile he'd seen of her yet. And, as she walked away, he heard her laughing. And, just as she made it to her car, he stopped her again.

"You're still a stranger. Half, a stranger," he said, wincing at how desperate he sounded for just a few more seconds before she left.

She didn't notice or she didn't care about how he sounded.

She only smiled.

"Bellamy. Bellamy Bennet."

And she wasn't a stranger anymore because she had a name.

"Bellamy," he said, watching as the lights of her car vanished into the dark of night.

Nodding, he walked back inside, locking the door behind him.

Thirty minutes the lights went off inside.

That night, he fell asleep, and for once, he didn't have a nightmare.

* * *

 _ **Thank you so much for sticking with me so far! If you read the note at the end of the last chapter, you know this is my first fic. For that reason, I would like to extend my utmost gratitude for "Guest" and "**_ ** _HyoryuNoHana", for dropping me a review!_**

 ** _I hope you guys like this chapter and those that follow._**

 ** _Anyways, I just wanted to say that I know that this chapter was a bit slow, but I swear, in the next chapter, I'm tying it to the show. Things will pick up after that! I promise._**

 ** _So that's it for now!_**

 ** _Hope you like chapter two..._**


	3. Chapter 3

**All rights to Hannibal (TV) belong to NBC.**

* * *

 _ **FBI Academy, Quantico, Virginia**_

He was starting to trust her. She knew that the second he asked her to watch his dogs while he was out. Although he didn't look happy about why he was leaving - she could only imagine the reasons behind him leaving - but she decided to accept all the same.

She didn't mind.

She switched to the day shift, and the amount of people still wasn't overwhelming, but it still shocked her to have to interact with more than the occasional one or two late night customers, looking for a place to grab a bite and take off again. She figured it was about time she started adjusting to a more normal routine. She knew there was nothing, technically, wrong with her life before. She kept her hands clean since she settled down in Virginia. She kept her eyes on the ground, never glancing up long enough to tempt herself before Will.

But he was the divide.

He was the cataclysmic event that shook her too the core.

Now, nothing seemed right. She couldn't function properly. She stayed up that night that she drank with him. She stayed up until beyond daylight, just lying down, hugging a pillow, staring at a wall, trying to figure out what she was going to do.

She felt like The Lady of Shalott, and he was her Lancelot.

She hadn't been happy. That was for certain. On the rare occasion that she smiled, it was always small, always forced, polite, but not warm. Yet, she was content. She had a simple life. Instead of being cursed to weave images on a loom, she found herself well practiced in reading the same stories over and over, sometimes drawing out scenes on napkins or scrap paper. Instead of looking out at the world through a shadowy mirror, she was staring through the caked glass of the diner. It wasn't as poetically beautiful as The Lady of Shalott, yet, her own knight caught her eye and tempted her to look directly out at the world, to go into it.

He could be her destruction.

"The curse is come upon me," Bella echoed, holding the pillow tighter that first night.

After two night shifts, she put in a formal request for a shift change. Her boss didn't ask why. He never did. He simply gave her a handwritten copy of her new schedule and told her to let him know when she wanted to start. She started not even twelve hours later. It probably was breaking a labor law, but neither would bring any attention to it. As far as anyone was concerned, there was nothing left to see. She simply continued as she did during the night. She offered to take inventory, to make sure everything was accounted, even to clean up his office every now and then as a thank you. She was given a quick "no" and was told to just do as she always did. And, she did just that. What she always did.

Will showed up the next morning after her initial shift. He told her that a coworker said that she'd switched. She asked for who told him, mainly because she doubted her coworkers even knew her name, and he told her that he just heard that schedules were shifted. She wanted to ask how he knew that she would take the morning shift instead of the afternoon one, but figured it wasn't important. What was important was that he knew when she was there. She was too taken with the events of that first night to ask for his phone number. Even a week into their new routine, which had her making omelets for breakfast, he didn't ask for hers. It wasn't until he asked her to stay and watch his dogs that he gave her his number. Although she was irritated with the circumstances that it took for him to exchange numbers with him, she was still happy to go back to his home, even when he was gone.

She felt safe there.

In the first few nights that she was there, she learned just how unbound he was.

He showed her around. He told her that she was free to use the kitchen, the bathroom, and that she could use the bedroom too. When he showed her the plain room, with bare walls with only two lamps and a phone on the dresser, he told her that the mattress was old, apologizing for it.

It didn't look old.

It looked like it would be on display in some store. It was worn enough to know that he probably lied on it from time to time, but when he said that it was almost a decade old, she knew it wasn't his bed. It wasn't where he slept. There was no indentations. There was not enough wear for it to be where he slept as often as a normal person would. This wasn't where he felt safe. She knew it because his bedroom looked like the section of her apartment that was the equivalent. Neither felt safe enough to linger.

She didn't stay there.

On her first night there, she tried sleeping in the bedroom. She lied down, on top of the covers, pulling up a small and thin blanket over her. She closed her eyes, but sleep never came. In the end, she wandered downstairs, where the dogs were so happily situated, and found a place for herself on the floor.

She liked being on the ground. The bed, despite its softness, didn't hold the same safety that came with being downstairs. She liked being close to the ground. It made her feel more secure. She liked being in the living room, but that was from being able to see anything, _anyone_ , if need be, and the dogs. She found, that first night, that she only needed a sheet. His dogs situated themselves around her. She fell asleep with a hand over one - "Oscar," Will had called him - since she had been petting him. There was something calming around being around them. It was the protection. It was the feeling that if something were to happen, then she wouldn't be alone. Oscar, one of the biggest of the bunch, became her most faithful companion in those three nights. Winston being a close second. She liked to think that dog, Winston, took to her foreignness because he, too, was a stranger.

When he came back, he found her in the living room. She was lying on her back, reading a book from his shelf, situated between Buster and Winston. It was so _normal_. He almost felt as though he walked into a dream because of how effortless she fit into his vision of home. She lifted herself high enough to see who came in, a warm smile blooming onto her scarred face. In that moment, all the stress he felt before was gone. She gingerly set aside the book, welcoming him home. His dogs were at his feet, circling him, jumping, excited over his return. Even as he greeted his most loyal companions, his eyes wondered to her. There was a sadness to her eyes, one that only increased when she gathered her things. After two weeks of this system of her keeping his dogs - mostly him - company, he couldn't stop himself.

He invited her to stay.

He quickly told her that he had to prepare a lesson for his class the next day, and that if he wanted to get any of it done, he couldn't be distracted with his dogs. It was a weak reason, especially since they were all fairly behaved. Still, she took it. That night, he sat at the table, doing just as he planned, but, every so often, he would look into the living room, and he would see her, happily keeping his dogs company. He refused to ask her to stay the night, mostly because he was scared of the implications that would come with it, and chose to ask her for lunch.

She said yes.

So, here she was, waiting outside his classroom, watching as students filed out. She thanked the stars for having enough sense to dress somewhat nice.

Still, she felt wrong.

Usually, she didn't care what she wore, but this time she did. It wasn't because she had a desire for nicer things. She simply had a desire to fall under the radar of those that could harm her. If she could, she would have donned a uniform, for the sake of blending in. Instead, she was under-dressed, clearly an outsider. Dark jeans, dark boots, and a comfortable, yet ill fitting sweater. She would have fit in fine if they met in public, or even at his house. Here, she felt like an outsider. Here, she was the odd one out. Neither student, nor staff. That was what had her fidgeting like a restless child.

When the last of the FBI trainees were out, she moved inside, finding her roughly put together friend. He was actively avoiding eye contact, staring at a file on his desk. She knew he forgot about their plans when she saw the slight surprise in his eyes when he noticed her. She wore a smile on her face up until the moment she saw the picture on the projector.

It was of a girl. Dark hair, hanging limply from the head of a girl with ivory skin. She was naked, splayed across the rack of a stag. Her arms were outstretched, limp, legs crossed even while hanging. The way she was impaled had her head lower than the rest of her body, head thrown back, exposing a harshly bruised neck, the look of fear on her face, her last scream immortalized in a picture. She was a disrespected sacrifice.

"Head down, diving straight into hell," Bella whispered, a slight grimace on her face.

She felt guilty just looking at it.

But she couldn't look away.

She told herself that she didn't know the girl. She told herself that the girl could have been a terrible person, that there was no sense in mourning someone she would never know. She told herself that just being young didn't make a death a tragedy. At the same age, she, herself, would have been indifferent to death. She wouldn't have been overjoyed, but she would not have been wronged by it.

When she felt guilty to the point where she could no longer feel herself, she looked to Will, seeking solace in the blue eyes that blinded her to all things cruel and inhumane.

"So this is where you teach?" she asked, meeting him halfway.

She couldn't go fully into the classroom. She felt her legs tense with every step further into the foreign space. It was familiar, but like the face of a family member that one hadn't seen since they were children. It was a classroom, darker, yet more stylish than the ones she was in when she was still trapped in university life. She never liked the classrooms like this. There were no windows, only one clock. As someone who never had a good grasp on time, she was tormented by the lack of tools to find herself. She could still recall the torture that it was to feel like she was suspended, trapped in a room full of faceless people with only anxiety as her company. That anxiety was what lead her to counting exits. It's what had her being able to only go halfway into the classroom.

But Will was understanding.

"This is where I try to teach," he corrected her, visibly trying not to grimace. "What I do - _what I see_ \- is not something that is a science."

He looked weary.

He looked _older._

The look he wore before her was the same one he wore after a long day doing, well, whatever he did. He always evaded her questions on what he did during the hours of the day. She never poked at him forcefully, only giving him opportunities to tell her. When he invited her to lunch, to drive together - he insulted her car and its ability to "safely transport" her from point A to point B - she assumed it was because he was ready to share, to open up. After seeing the image on the screen, she could understand why he didn't tell her fully before.

"What you see?" she echoed, raising a brow.

"Think of it as a combination of acute empathy combined with severe imagination in relation to psychopathic murderers," he answered in a sharp and bitter tone. There was an apology in his eyes the second he saw her eyes twitch, fighting a flinch.

"I can imagine why you don't want to bring your work home," she said, choosing to ignore the wound in her heart. "It doesn't sound like an exact art or science."

"It's not."

They stared at each other, neither knowing what exactly to say or do.

"I feel like that's something that a person has to learn on their own," she continued after she was met with silence. "It's myopia," she decided, looking to her scuffed boots, hiding from his gaze. She didn't need him to tell her that he had an acute sense of empathy to feel like he could see her, understand her. She felt naked since they first saw each other. "It comes in layers, with each layer peeling away to see more. Childhood was a thick layer, something everyone here has left behind. _But_ , there are some things in life that give you a sense of clarity that you can't get through studying or muted experiences."

"Layers," he repeated, mulling her words over.

"Trainees can't just look at pictures, or crime scenes, and... _see_. And I don't mean any offense to what you teach," she added, glancing at him before returning her eyes to her boots.

"No offense taken," he promised. Out of the corner of her eyes, she saw a slight wave of the hand.

There was too much to worry about when it came to testing the waters.

She'd much rather dive in, even if it did risk drowning.

 _"What do you see?"_

Her eyes snapped upwards, meeting his. Color drained from her face, the impulse to run fueling her.

She didn't run.

His eyes trapped her there.

He was looking at her, looking at her in a way she often saw him doing. He looked like he was trying to pick her apart as though she were a stained glass window that was shattered, picking up the pieces and trying to put it back together to see the image clearly. Only, the image was her, and she wasn't sure she wanted to be seen fully just yet.

But she couldn't simply stay silent.

He didn't deserve more silence.

With a deep breath, one where she tried to gather whatever strength she had left, she moved her eyes to the screen, once more taking in the awful sight. She stayed silent for a long time. She wasn't picking apart the image. She wasn't making sense of it. That long while was spent mourning, despite her reasoning.

If she took after her mother, she would have thought the girl to be a complete tragedy. She would have looked unto the girl and think her robbed of heaven or peace. Her mother was the kind to believe that spirits didn't rest easy if they died before they were ready to die, if they had something horrible to replay for an eternity, something to linger in instead of going onto whatever was next. Her mother was the kind of woman who took pride in putting on funerals almost as much as she took on weddings.

Bella was different.

'A beautiful funeral doesn't guarantee heaven,' she recalled.

"I don't see a murder," she whispered. "I mean, I don't _just_ see a dead girl," she clarified quickly, looking to him, feeling as though she had said the worst thing imaginable. He simply gestured towards the screen, prompting her to continue. Swallowing, trying to keep the bile from rising in her throat when Will mentioned that whoever was responsible for the girl's death had taken her lungs, that the girl was still alive when he cut them.

She looked at the screen.

At the girl.

"I see a demonstration," she began, feeling as though the air was growing thinner with each breath. "The way she is impaled hides her nudity... This is not personal," she noted, inching forward as if to see better. The sight grew crueler. She was mounted like a table top on those antlers, the crows around her looking like guests at a dinner table, haply feasting on the girl.

She felt sick.

" _This-_ " She wanted to look away. "This is not something they, the person who did this, needed to do in order to survive. This is... It's crude. It's brutal and clumsy, but..." It made no sense to a logical mind. "The brutality, the clumsiness, it was intentional." It was a mockery. "I can't tell what they're trying to say, but that's the point," she realized, both relieved and terrified because of it. "I'm not who they're talking to. I'm not the one that's meant to understand this."

When she looked back at him, there was a look in his eyes that she recognized as the one where he was picking her apart again.

Had she said too much?

"Count me as impressed, Ms. Bennet," he said, staring at her with a mixture of hope and uncertainty. This was their usual feelings for the other. Comforted, yet cautious.

Will said nothing more. He simply kept his whole body carefully still, looking her over. She didn't squirm. She didn't move an inch, giving nothing away. They would have stood there for hours, maybe, if a loud and booming voice didn't shatter the silence they sought solace in.

" _Count me as well._ "

The man striding into the classroom was tall. He looked weathered, but nevertheless strong despite his greying hair. Like a monster in the flesh, the man grew in size the closer he got, and by the time he was standing before her, despite his smile, she felt as though a lion entered the den, and she were nothing but a small bird, trapped. Judging by how Will tensed at the sight of the man, she counted him as a danger. She didn't need Will to have this feeling, though. Looking at him, his size, physically or otherwise, she knew this man was a predator. He was the hunter, and people like Will and her were just tools to use to find his prey.

Things to be used haphazardly.

The man stopped before them. Bella looked to Will, seeing him reach into his bag and procuring a set of glasses. He put them on, setting them to where the rim of his glasses were blocking the man's face, preventing eye contact. Bella didn't have the luxury of a shield, and looked directly at him, hoping that he would be the one to look away. Instead, he stared on, proud, unashamed, no secrets to hide.

At least, not like the ones she hid.

The man smiled at her, but it was polite. It wasn't genuine, it had less than just intentions.

"I'm Special Agent Jack Crawford. I lead the Behavioral Science Unit," the man introduced himself as, offering a hand to shake.

Hesitantly, she took it, eyes flickering downward, catching a glimpse of the larger, calloused hands that closed around hers.

There was a firmness to the shake, an assertion of dominance. She would guess that this man, with how he so easily gave his title as if it were as natural as simply saying his name, was manipulative. Not in a malicious sense, but the kind of manipulation good people used to pay a foul price to sire more good. She wondered if he was aware of doing this. Some were so well versed in the art of manipulation to the point of fooling themselves into thinking they are the opposite.

She kept her hand steady, but didn't try to match his firmness.

She was a manipulator as well.

She knew the way she looked. She looked messy, rough, possibly fragile, given the moment. If she stood strong, with squared shoulders and a hard face, she would either draw eyes or draw expectations. Under the guise of a weary woman with weak hands incapable of wounding, she flew so easily under the radar. Though, if that guise were false, or some of the truth to what she was, she could not tell. She certainly felt weary.

"Bella," she introduced herself as. She didn't give a title, or her last name, as always.

Recognition flashed in his eyes at her name. That was the point of the shorter name. It wasn't that Bellamy was hard to say - It was long, but not impossible - or that she felt like a "Bella." It simply was that the name was entirely common. If searched, there would be her, along with thousands, if not more, with the same name as her. She didn't want to be found easy, and when treading through the FBI academy, she would use as much anonymity as she could. In the FBI Academy, she was the weakest.

 _Still, the weakest must go._

The Man, "Jack", looked at Will, who looked torn between exhausted, angry, and embarrassed.

She wondered if he wanted her to leave.

"How was class?"

The question brought a harsh scowl to Will's face. He was not going to dilute his feelings around this man.

"They applauded, it was inappropriate."

Bella looked away, trying to hide her contorting features, the disgust.

"Is there a problem, Ms.," Jack paused, expectantly waiting for her to fill in the blank.

"No, sir," she answered, not giving her name. There was a lingering skepticism in his eyes before he looked to Will. "Review board begs to differ. You're up for a commendation and they okayed active return to the field."

Field?

Her eyes flashed to Will. She knew that he only told her that he taught. Then again, he never said that he had duties outside of teaching. As much as she wanted to give into her anger and sense of betrayal on his part, she was gentle. Looking at the screen again, she wondered if looking at things like this were his job. Based on what he was trying to teach, that would imply that he knew the story behind the picture. How else would be be able to tell if the students were seeing clearly if he, himself, could not?

Eyes that see true.

"I want you to go back in the field, but I told the Board I'm recommending a psych evaluation."

The man did not ask if Will wanted to go "back in the field." No. Jack simply looked unto will like a demanding conqueror and gave out orders to follow. He gave a call, and Will, like the compassionate, yet yearning to do good, answered that call.

"I'm not going to be comfortable with anybody inside my head," Will said, looking up fully, glaring the man down. He said it as if it should have been a known fact.

This was no surprise to her. Given their first encounters, even up until now, she witnessed Will's apprehensive nature. He barely cracked the door open for her to catch a glimpse of him, and this man walks in, telling him that the door will be opened fully for someone to examine the exposed emotional wiring that kept him functioning.

The second Jack opened his mouth, drawing in a breath, Bella opened hers. She was quicker.

"I'll give you some privacy," she excused herself with, turning on her feet, expecting that the man was polite enough to not force her to stay.

It was a calculated decision, but not one without a margin of error.

"I heard what you said about Cassie Boyle's body," he said, calling her back. She didn't turn to look back at him. She looked to the girl. _Cassie_. It shouldn't have changed anything, but it did.

She had a name.

She had a _life_.

There would be someone out there to miss her, someone out there who would now have to feel the crushing blow of a chunk of their being missing, amputated without consent. There would be a void in their heart, shade in their soul. She could only hope that those people would not fall through the cracks, through the missing pieces that were once filled with Cassie Boyle. She could only hope that they weren't consumed by loss.

She of all people knew what it was like to drown in it.

The storm of emotions, feeling she buried so deep were rising, waking. Jack saw this, he saw the same urge to stop whatever was behind this as Will did.

It tempted him too much.

When she looked at him, she saw nothing except the predator, and she was now the prey.

"That was very similar to what Will said when he first looked at it."

"Jack, _no_ ," Will began, color draining from his face as he began to see where Jack was headed.

"We could use an extra pair of eyes."

That was it. That was the sales pitch.

She hadn't known when she crossed her arms, but the second he said that, her fingers dug into the sleeves of her shirt, grasping onto them, at the same time trying to use her arms to cover herself, as if to shield her vital organs from this hungry man.

Her eyes darted to the entrance to the classroom, wanting nothing more than to run back to the diner, back to the safety of a mundane routine.

Jack and Will were looking at her. Jack's eyes were impassively watching her, just waiting for her to fall for it. If he cared for the terror in her eyes one way or the other, he wasn't letting on. She was just a bird, flailing her wings, hopelessly trying to escape the cage that he trapped her in. He knew what she would say.

There was a massive stony weight crushing her. She felt as if she had been under the illusion of relief, but now there was a solid mountain was holding her down. Jack knew what he was doing. He was a good man. By the look in his eyes, by the unabashed ways he carried himself, she knew that he couldn't have cruel intentions. He wanted to do right. He simply wanted it more than the price that would come with that. In that moment, she knew what was following Will home like a haunting nightmare. It was Jack and all that he pushed onto Will. He was the man who would place the world on their shoulders, knowing full well that neither of them were an atlas.

Good intentions.

That was undeniable. His work was good. She could see it in his eyes, fire burning brightly to cast some light onto this dark world.

It was an understandable dream, to stop the wheel that brought ruins to innocent lives.

Yet, looking at him, looking at the fire in his eyes, the strength in which he held himself, she knew that he would have them all burned or crushed alive if it meant giving justice.

That was too far.

She knew it the moment she thought it, but even if he wouldn't let them be consumed by it - not without a fight, at least - he would let them get awfully close to that point. It was a point she had passed a long time ago, one that brought her to wallowing in her withering, resigning to ruins. It was Will who pulled her out, just enough to breathe, to feel what it was like to be alive, and since then, she did not want it. She did not want to go back under. That was the frightening fate that would be fathered by Jack's proposition. She didn't know if she could do it.

Where was her justice?

 _Where was Cassie Boyle's?_

The voice in her head was a volatile one, caught in between self preservation and self annihilation. It was pulling her in two different directions, and she was feeling herself being ripped down the middle, half wanting to just tell him no, and to live out her days in guilty peace. The other wanted to say yes. After all, her justice was obsolete. She spent years trying to get it back, trying to take back just a shred of what was taken from her. There was none left. She hit rock bottom a long time ago, so long that it felt like it was centuries away when she just gave up, collapsing on the cold, dark asphalt of a road with no end.

There was nothing left for her when it came to justice.

But her? The girl on the screen? Cassie Boyle and those like her?

There was still something left for them.

Jack knew that.

"She'd not FBI. She's not training either," Will argued, as if that wasn't painfully obvious.

Jack wasn't phased. Her silence was enough for him. She was a prize fish in his net, and he was not going to let her go easy.

"Neither are you."

Bella was somewhat taken back by this. She saw enough of Will's personal life to know that he was not resting easy. She'd washed some of his sweat stained sheets, and knew that whatever was following him was eating him alive. As much as she tried to prolong it, trying to figure out a way out, he was busy experimenting cautiously with the same thing she was now: Justice.

It was an intoxicating idea. Everyone had something to be guilty of, but justice, doing right by someone or something was the medicine for it. It made one feel less like burning into the ashes of self sacrifice because maybe, _just maybe_ , if one could help enough, their souls might hold some merit, that their lives might be easier to stomach. She remembered this feeling, the invigorating sensation of being as whole as they once were, despite knowing that wholesomeness only came with the innocence of childhood. And _that_ was long ago and far away. Now, she was under no false pretenses. She knew that in the end, there might only be invisible monsters trailing behind her, waiting until she slowed down long enough to eat her alive, but if she could do just a little bit of good before...

If she could spare someone else...

Perhaps it would be worth it.

"She already has a job," Will said.

Bella felt her heart ache to give some relief to him. He was so _good_. He was the soldier in Jack's war, the innocent that would pay the price. Here he was, fighting for her, trying to spare her from the burden he carried.

He was the kind of man who would suffer alone and in silence if it meant that someone else didn't have to. She couldn't imagine what could have happened to make him this way. Perhaps he was always like this. That thought only made matters worse. How could she ever let him suffer alone when he was so impossibly selfless? How could she let him be all alone? It went against her nature. It went against their pact to avoid loneliness, to talk, to share, to enjoy what it was like to have company, and here it was, a perfect opportunity to rest on the same page. Seeing the same things, being chased by the same monsters. He wouldn't have a reason to hide from her, just as she would not have a reason to hide from him. It would be the quenching to her thirst to know him. Jack didn't know that, which made his offer all the more appealing.

It was selfless and selfish to accept.

"We'll do a trial run," Jack offered, switching his eyes back to her, singling her out. He would not tolerate Will fighting anymore. He wanted to hear from her. If she accepted, he would be able to issue mandates, given she was the one who willingly signed her life away to his war. "If all goes well, if you prove to be an asset, we can have you become a consultant as well. We'd pay handsomely," he added.

He should have been head of advertising with how well it was working on her.

"I would say yes," she began, taking in a deep breath.

It was a half commitment, showing she wanted to accept, but was held back. It gave Jack an opportunity to persuade her. She gave him that, and Will knew it. She knew he knew it by the scowl on his face.

She felt guilty for wanting to accept. It was clear that Will didn't want this for her. As much as he didn't want to be alone in what he did, he didn't want that for her.

All the more reason to accept.

"I have no experience," she admitted.

Will muttered something under his breath. She couldn't tell if he was thankful or not for her confession at first. When he moved closer to her, half shielding her with his own body when he turned to face Jack, she knew it was gratitude.

Jack only stepped to the side, getting a better look at her.

"If you can see as well as he does-"

"I can't."

"If you can see _half_ as well as he does," Jack corrected himself, irritation quickly flashing in his brown eyes. "Then it doesn't matter. Will Graham has done a lot of good. He's helped put a lot of bad people behind bars. He saves a lot of lives, and with two, imagine how much more."

He was applying guilt. Guilt was a last ditch effort, and she knew it.

She wondered if he tried to guilt Will into examining crimes. She wondered if he felt guilty for using guilt on others.

Jack was pressuring her to give the most socially acceptable answer: "Yes."

Will looked so helpless. He looked like he was watching a tragedy. She held no doubt in her mind that he saw her as the lamb being lead into the lion's den, being drawn to the slaughter. All he could do was watch while it happened, all his efforts gone to waste. But he should have known. They were too much alike for her not to say yes. He'd seen enough of her to know that she was just as content with unraveling the fabric of her being just as much as he was. They were both the lamb, indifferent to the tears in their flesh as they were slowly swallowed, and neither knew how to prevent the other from becoming the next feast.

"Don't you have some requirements?" she asked, overwhelmed. It couldn't be that easy.

"Well, like I said, Will isn't an FBI agent either-"

"I was a homicide detective, which is vastly different than what she does."

Jack bristled at Will's protesting.

He would never admit it, but he was being set on edge.

He worried for Will.

Jack, as much as he pushed Will, cared for the man. He made a promise not to let Will "get too close", and with the idea of someone else being able to shoulder the load, it gave comfort. He was already losing sleep over the constant worry of breaking Will. He was already pushing it with how close Will came with the Hobbs case. That was the whole reason he came, seeking Will out to begin with, but that would have to wait.

"Do you have at least a bachaelor's degree?" Jack asked.

She didn't want to answer, but she did anyways, giving a nod.

"Are you older than twenty three?"

Again, she nodded.

Jack offered a supportive smile, and looked to Will, standing triumphantly as though he won a long debate. Perhaps he had in his own way, knowing full well that this wasn't the end of Will's resentment for even offering her a place in his line of work.

"There you have it Will. You were never an agent-" Jack paused, looking at her, a silent proposition resting on his tongue as he looked at the woman. She looked young, younger than thirty-seven. Taking in the scars on her face, he figured she knew how to make it out of tough situations. She was a fair looking recruit at first glance. Yet, as soon as he saw the slightest potential in her, he regretted it. An image of a pretty, young, blond woman with far more determination in her eyes this moment.

He wouldn't have a repeat of _her_.

 _He couldn't._

He couldn't do that to Will.

With the protectiveness that Will showed for this "Bella," Jack, although he would collect her, refused to put her in the line of danger that came with being an agent. She had enough scars to mar her face.

"We'll place her as an assistant to you. You've caught the attention of many in the psychology field that claim that no one comes close to your 'active imagination' and here you have someone who shows _potential_."

Jack didn't say it, but he was trying to give Will some control. Placing the girl under the title of "assistant" would mean he could tap - _slam_ \- on the breaks if need be.

But it wasn't his choice.

That was what made Will feel so helpless. Even if he said, "No," Jack would still come with sheers and cut the torn and thorny rose that was Bella from the safety of his grasp, and pluck at her petals until she wasn't recognizable. But, he could agree with what Jack was proposing. He made it this far, not unscathed, but still alive, still functioning. If he were there, if he were in some control, he could teach her how to navigate her way through a job like this. Like it or not, the idea of someone like him being there, or simply just someone like him, comforted him. This was what they wanted and even he couldn't deny that. What he could turn away was the image of her being cut into the same image that he was. He didn't want that from her, but it wasn't his choice. He could either choose to stand idle and let the river of trauma erode who she was, or he could participate and salvage what he could.

He was as lost as she was in Jack's proposal.

"Just one case, Will," Jack said, as if to sooth the uncertainties of a child. If it was meant to comfort him, it did the opposite. After all, it only took one case to ruin a person. "She's agreed to it." She never said it. She didn't have to. "She'll only continue if she's a good fit and if she wants to."

All three of them knew only one of those two conditions mattered to Jack. He would force her hand if she didn't want to. All that truly mattered was if she would be able to do the job, or "assist" in it.

Will took off his glasses, feeling too tired for it to only be around noon. He rubbed his eyes, as if he could get lost in the phosphenes. And, ever the reluctant, he nodded. He pretended as if he had a choice, and Jack pretended to take that into accountability.

And Bella?

Bella just watched, feeling as though there were water gushing into the classroom, slowly rising until it eventually drowned her. Once again, she was submitting herself to a dangerous fate, but this time, there might be good coming out of it.

 _This isn't like before._

That is what she told herself in order to remember to breathe. She retreated into her mind, finding the memory of being in the living room of Will's house, surrounded by dogs, by warmth, by safety.

She lingered there, staring forward with glassy and far away eyes until she felt a hand on her elbow, not grasping onto it, just gently placed, calling her attention. When her eyes came to focus, when she found herself back in the classroom, all there was before her was Will, staring with those same kind and gentle eyes with only just a hint of disappointment. He didn't give her any anger, any resentment, just as she gave him no apologies. Because, in the end, they were each other's reason for accepting Jack's offer.

"Let's go and get lunch," Will said airily, adjusting his jacket. Bella only nodded, letting him take her hand and lead her away. Far away. He was trying to put as much distance between them and Jack as he could, as if that would change what was to come.

He found them a quiet restaurant, dimly lit and quiet, save the soft sounds of music.

They said nothing, both trying to come to terms with the uncertain future that was headed their way. Both trying to hide behind indifference. In the end, when he drove her back to her apartment, when he walked her to her door, he couldn't stop himself. He caught her arm, her attention.

"What are you doing?"

He felt as though he shattered the peaceful beginning they created together, only to begin the real tragedy that began with 'What are you doing?' and ends with 'What have you done?'.

* * *

 **So, that's chapter three!**

 **I cannot convey how happy I am that people are actually reading this! Special thanks to all who reviewed! I needed that encouragement.**

 **Anyways, I'm hoping that the next chapter continues to pick up the pace. I will be introducing Hannibal (the character) in the next chapter, so I'm excited to explore that!**

 **Once again, thank you for reading and I hope you stay.**


	4. Chapter 4

**All rights to Hannibal (TV) belong to NBC.**

* * *

 _ **Elk Neck State Forest, Maryland**_

Before Will, the only place she felt mildly close to safe was the diner, as strange as it was. She figured it was because nothing bad happened _inside_ it despite a slaughter being only a few hundred feet away. The diner was suspended in time. Death only existed _outside_ of it.

That was why she wasn't surprised by the sight before her.

Bodies.

Nine bodies.

Mounds of soil and decay and mushrooms.

EMT's were moving like clockwork, moving bagged bodies onto a gurney, wheeling them away.

And there she was, idly standing by, feeling just like how she did when she found the family.

She could do nothing for their lives.

But she might give them peace in death.

That was what she told herself, shaking images of that night and previous nights away.

Her eyes snapped towards the voice of Jack Crawford, his voice carrying as if he were standing over water and not the ground fertilized with the dead. He looked so strong. Despite his flaws, he was a good man, the rock in the middle of a storm, a grounding sight. A part of her almost smiled at him, feeling more at ease because there was some authority there, someone to protect her. Beside him was Will, his eyes somewhat far away, staring at the bodies. As safe as she felt with him, he was gone. Lost in his imagination, lost in the job they were both supposed to do. He was the reminder of what she was here to do. He was the reminder to push aside memories and focus on the present in hopes of saving someone else's future.

A man in his fifties, looking strong, focused, right at home, standing before the fungus ravaged corpses, was the first to speak when Will found his way to her side.

"We've got nine bodies, various stages of decay, all very well fertilized," he reported.

Bella's eyes looked towards a woman in her thirties, one with clever bright eyes that spotted the difference from the black soil and the brown clay walls of a body's grave. Off to the side was a man, also in his thirties, tall and easy on the eyes, examining one of the victims outstretched arm that was attached to a section of rebar. They looked so comfortable around the dead that it made her feel alien to it all.

A foreigner.

She didn't wait to hear the "team" talking. She wasn't like them. She didn't spend years in training. The only thing she had under her belt was a degree, which really didn't help her much. All that helped was a pair of eyes and a mind that was able to dissect gruesome art. It wasn't like Will, which she quickly saw Jack's disappointment in when she broke from the group, examining the farthest unearthed body, staring more at the fungi than the body.

It was art.

It was art in a horrid and cruel way, but art no less.

Every action taken by a person was a message in some way. Humans were nothing if not social creatures. Even at their worst, there was always something to be said, something to be expressed. It was as though there were some ancient curse that came with complex sentience, a compulsion to try to make things that weren't tangible into something that was, something to be looked at, examined, and picked apart.

A want to make the immaterial material.

That's how she had to view it. It was not a science, not an art. It was like a craft, or so Will told her. He told her that when she "saw", she was not supposed to be wishing or praying to see something. She didn't want to see _anything_. She was supposed to simply relying upon her will and knowledge and skill to navigate her way to a specific conclusion. That wasn't to say that she wasn't supposed to understand what she was seeing or feeling. That was Will's job. He was the empathetic tool. All she was there to do is to enhance that, or so they decided. She didn't have to understand their killer, what he was doing, where he came from, or what he was going to do next. She just had to work with what she had to understand what they were saying in that moment.

Needless to say, she was much more engaged with this job than she was waiting on tables to faceless people that she would likely never see again.

What she was particularly engaged with was the fungi.

It wasn't out of the blue to bury bodies. Murder or otherwise, burying bodies wasn't uncommon. What better way to hide something than below the surface? She could see the logic in that. What concerned her was the fungi.

In her college days, she had tried to be normal. She did normal things like go to class, socialize, attend social gatherings and such. She made "friends" and even tried her hand at dating.

Her name was Alejandra Alvarez. She had dark skin, dark hair, and dark eyes that reminded Bella of the night's sky, endless and, despite their color, brighter than stars. She was smarter, kinder, and all around more attractive than Bella had ever seen in a woman. Her own Puerto Rican - Dominican Princess. And that was how Bella treated her. She cherished every moment with Alejandra. She did what a girlfriend was expected to do, and then some because Alejandra deserved far more than the status quo. And, in return, Alejandra rewarded Bella with the same efforts.

For a brief moment, Bella was lost in a nostalgic memory of the glorious woman.

She regretted not being able to love her.

Not that she didn't love Alejandra.

She just didn't love the woman like she deserved to be loved.

Bella tried to sift through her memories, rummaging through files of them until she remembered a specific memory.

The fungi.

Alejandra was studying to become a botanist.

She loved plants about as much as Will loved his dogs.

This being said, on one particular date, she gifted Bella with a bouquet of fungi. Alejandra had told her the reasoning behind each one, even going further to explain the properties of them as well. Alejandra's favorite, out of all of them was the "ghost fungus", the Omphalotus nidiformis.

Alejandra and Bella were ill timed.

They found each other during the beginning of their fourth year together, a year when Bella was on the brink of breaking, finally shattering a few weeks before the winter holidays. That breaking point placed their break up a few weeks before Christmas. Despite their ill timed relationship, Alejandra was still a good girlfriend, one that cared for her, far more than Bella deserved to be cared for. One of her favorite moments was when Alejandra gave her the bouquet because of one reason: Alejandra's attempt to help her function better.

Bella was having nightmares. It lead to her having angry neighbors in her dorm by how often she would wake with screaming. Alejandra's first attempt was to offer to sleep at her side, but Bella, feeling too guilty for her girlfriend spending money on an apartment only to waste it by staying with her broken girlfriend in a dorm. And so, her next solution was to "cast some light on a dark place." Hence the ghost fungus.

The fungus was quite lovely for it being a fungus. It had a soft cream-colored caps overlain with shades of purples or oranges. It fanned out like petals on an overgrown flower. Most importantly, the Omphalotus nidiformis was a fungus that emitted phosphorescent light during the night. It was supposed to give her comfort, and for a while it had. There was the problem that, once severed, the fungi gradually decrease in intensity as it dried. That was one of the initial thoughts registering when she looked unto the bodies. She imagined that the mushrooms were used as a marker, to find one's way back to the garden, to find the graves.

But they weren't fully buried.

Her eyes found the hand held up by a bar, disregarding the light property.

A sigh left her lips.

There was something about the mushrooms.

Aside from the bio-luminescent properties, the Omphalotus nidiformis and closely related Pleurotus Nidiformis were fungi involved with saprotrophic nutrition.

 _"It is a process of chemoheterotrophic extracellular digestion involved in the processing of dead or decayed organic matter."_

Looking around the forest opening, she could spot at handful of dead or dying trees. Yet, none of them sported the fungi. The fungi wasn't native to North America. She would bet more money than she actually had on that being true. And so, she looked back at the fungi, at the body. The fungi were there for the bodies, but not as a disposal method. Well, perhaps it was an upside to murder, but that wasn't the whole reason. There were better ways to dispose of a body, so it had to mean _more_ than that.

She glanced at the tube, detached from the victim's mouth.

It had to be either for breathing or feeding.

Whoever did it was keeping them alive.

So what was it behind-

"You okay?"

She jolted at the sound of a voice of someone that was closer than she was able to prepare for.

Her eyes snapped upward and to the left, the direction of the voice. There she found a concerned looking man, the one in his fifties, carefully watching her. His gloved hands were dirtied by the spoil, as were his pants and coat, but other than that, he looked as calm as can be. He looked as though he should be on a commercial for office supplies rather than studying victims in shallow graves. Had she seen him elsewhere, she probably would have been less startled. Then again, elsewhere, she would have been more aware and better prepared.

"Y-yeah," she answered too quickly, ignoring his hand, helping herself to her feet, dusting off the dirt. She tried to tear her eyes away from the body in the ground. She tried to focus on him, but her eyes fell back onto the corpse with tape over its eyes nose and mouth. She imagined whoever did it was doing their best to protect the bodies. It was rather counter intuitive if they were encouraging decomposition. This thought only made her wonder all the more what was behind the fungus. "What are you trying to tell me?" she thought aloud, shaking her head slightly.

"Death by fungus is a long process," the man mused.

Bella nodded, thinking it was an obvious statement, but, politely, chose to keep that thought to herself. The last thing she needed was to be rude to a man that clearly was at this longer than she was. He was a respectable and credible crime scene investigator. She was a college dropout that had to ask her boss to take leave for the day early with the promise of coming in or staying if need be. Regardless of who either were in the end, they were both in Elk Neck State Forest, looking at the same dead body. Bella didn't know whether that made her feel better or worse about being by him. Though, out of the two options, she would much rather feel better about herself instead of worse. She thought of herself as the reigning champion of wallowing in one's failures. Perhaps it was time to put that title away. After all, what good would wallowing do for finding the person responsible for the nine graves.

"Jimmy Price," the man introduced himself as, offering a friendly smile despite their surroundings. She was comforted by the sight of a friendly face, and took his hand better than she had Jack's, giving it a firm shake. A part of her wanted to impress the man, to live up to the reputation that he and the rest of his team clearly had, the three of them, him, the young woman, and the not bad looking other man were fluid in their examining of the crime scene, clearly familiar with each other. With Jack watching nearby, not concerned with what they were doing, but more so how much they might be finding, he clearly trusted them to do their jobs.

"Bella Bennet," she introduced herself as in return.

Her name sounded foreign on her tongue, still adjusting to the sound of it.

She had to give her full name when she was issued a badge that permitted her access to the crime scene and other places that she probably would have been quickly ushered away from even looking at, if she had to take a guess by how tightly run the FBI was.

"It's not about the disposal though," she added, recalling the thoughts he interrupted.

The man, "Jimmy", raised his brows, silently inquiring what her thoughts were. A part of her didn't want to explain herself. A part of her felt as though this man, who looked so at home with everything, was testing her.

But this was a test regardless.

"The fungi," she said, pointing to the body before her before cringing and feeling as though she had defiled the memory of whoever it once belonged to by treating it like an object rather than a person.

"So, it's about the fungus?" the man asked, frowning, clearly not taken with her answer.

"It's not about the fungus," she quickly said, not wanting to be misunderstood so quickly. It was her fault for being too vague, a habitual response that she needed to curve if she was going to earn her spot. "It's about what the fungus does," she added. "If it were about the fungus, they'd better survive on a tree or in specialized soil because the mycelium found in fungus absorbs nutrients from its environment," she explained. "Though I have no doubts that a decaying body would support growth, that wouldn't give cause to keeping them alive."

"You sound like you know a lot about mushrooms," Jimmy Price said turning his body away, taking just a step before he looked back at her. "You're going to want to move before Will gets started," he added.

Bella looked back at Will, finding him waiting for a cue that he could begin his "process." He didn't look distressed. He didn't look comfortable either. He was already far away, and she could see that. She was too busy watching him as he began to walk backwards that Jimmy had to gingerly pull her away from the scene. Snapping back to attention, she followed him to the sidelines, turning her back to Will.

He didn't want her here.

If he had his way, she would still be thinking that his days were spent in front of trainees and nothing more. It felt only right to give him the luxury of privacy, even if other's eyes were on him. At least he would have one less pair on him.

"Fungi aren't as bad as they seem," she shrugged, pulling his attention to her. He, too, had been watching Will up until she spoke again.

One less pair of eyes.

"They're kind of cool," she shrugged.

Jimmy let out a breathy chuckle, amused at the word "cool." Once again, she was reminded of how below the bar she was compared to the rest of them. Trying to salvage her reputation in his eyes, she began grasping for a better explanation.

"What I mean is that fungi, the mycelium, can form a mat that can be... _very big_..." She cringed at her elementary descriptors. "They branch out, join together in a large structure of connectivity. Their spores react kind of like a nervous system. They can join together in ways we can't," she said, satisfied enough to stop. "So, yes. 'Cool.'"

Jimmy looked off, most likely at Will, though she couldn't tell with her back in the direction he was looking. Yet, at the same time, she could see her words being processed, him mulling over what she said, letting it sit and grow. When he accepted whatever resonated, he looked back at her, the pondering frown fading into that same friendly smile.

"Connectivity?" he echoed.

Her eyes widened as he came to a conclusion faster than she did.

 _Connections._

It was the very thing that was behind actions, words, art in general.

That was the art.

That was the nine graves.

Connectivity.

"I think this is the part where I go and talk to Jack," she choked out, still digesting Jimmy's words. She found herself nodding as it made more and more sense.

The man gave her a smile. It was not friendly, not completely, but it was the most welcoming she experienced when it came to those she'd usually seen in Jack Crawford's office. There was no shortage of strong standing, stone faced eyes setting sights on her, the one that wasn't matching up to their expertise. It did not sooth her growing fears of Jack - she wondered if she did truly fear him, or the things he could do, but she treated both options as if they were one - yet she appreciated it all the same.

Such appreciation gave her enough courage not to turn and run from the massive creature that Jack and all his righteous hunger for justice was. Standing before him made her uncomfortable. He was too forward, too direct, too _hungry_ for her liking. Unlike him, she was not the kind to go out seeking justice. She was not some heroic figure trying to make life better. All she ever found herself doing was trying to survive it. It wasn't a swell life. In fact, she found herself dying of it, growing weary with each day she was alive. She doubted he understood the agony of a life without a life.

There was a time when she almost lost all sense of self.

She spent hours on end, just staring into nothing, not a thought or feeling passing through her. She remembered how it felt as one did when they were barely waking, unable to tell if they were awake or asleep, trapped in that numbing haze that was slight consciousness. She remembered the strangeness that was going about her days on autopilot, having done things, yet feeling as though her body was not her own, as if she were not in control, just watching from a distance. What she remembered most clearly was touching her face from time to time, finding herself almost surprised by the feeling of touch, by having a face to be touched or by having a body to be felt with.

Days blurred together into months. What brought her out of it was her boss. The small hispanic man who looked at the shell of a woman and sat her down, conversing with her until she remembered what she was, that _she was_. She had been so focused on creating a routine, following it so rigidly in order to know when something was wrong, that she was lost in it.

And now, here she was, awake and with so much to do with her life, even if it was speaking to the hot-tempered, stone like man that was Jack Crawford. Every conversation, every look, every _encounter_ , with jack was concerned with her merit. He was, aware or not of his own actions, concerned with how to use those around him. And she was nothing short of a tool for him, a tool to be kept at a distance, but use her all the same, he did. She could recognize the mistrust in his eyes even as she spoke her own interpretations of this crime to him. She was important enough to warrant his attention until she was done speaking, to which he returned his eyes to the man they both relied too heavily on.

She was guilty of doing the same.

Will had his back to them, facing forward to the grave she was once standing over, staring down at it with far away eyes. She almost felt compelled to rush towards him, to take his face in her hands and bring him back to the present because the expression on his face, the cold and confronting fear in his eyes, it was forever burned into her memory. Had she been braver, she would have. Instead, she shut her mouth tightly, waiting for him to breath once more. After closing his eyes, holding himself together in a poor attempt as to stop himself from hyperventilating, he opened them and let out a sigh of relief. How he could be relieved to be alone with the dead was beyond her.

That relief was short lived.

Will's terrified screams shattered what control she had over herself.

She was at his side instantaneously, uncaring for the fungus covered arm and the sound of a rattled, wet gasp from what should have been a corpse. All she cared for was him.

As much as she wished to help those who would otherwise be harmed by the people the FBI were after, she was not as righteous as to put them above those she cared for. It was entirely selfish, but understandable all the same. She knew this because Jack, in all his distrust, allowed her pull Will away.

Whether she knew it or not, this act was the one that placed her at his side, his mirror, a refection that would remind him of where he was, what he was, and who he was under all the empathy for the wicked.

While everyone else on Jack's team raced to their stations, helping the once buried man, she was there, leading Will away from the scene, away from all that would harm him.

Perhaps she had it wrong.

Perhaps she wasn't there to help innocent strangers at all.

Perhaps she was only there to save the person who once saved her.

 _ **The Office of Hannibal Lecter,**_ ** _Baltimore, Maryland_**

Will slid the letterhead of his "rubber stamped" psych eval towards his psychiatrist, half mourning the waste of time and paper that the letterhead was. Just as forcefully, Hannibal Lecter slid the letter back towards him, denying the return of it.

Will liked the refined man before him. There was something unnaturally charming about the accented psychiatrist, something that demanded appeal despite all efforts against him. In all the pushes Will gave, the man only took it in stride, returning before his eyes unscathed.

What rested between them was not friendship, but with how quickly Hannibal Lecter showed trust in him, approving a psych eval that no other doctor would otherwise give, Will could not think of what was between them as something so professional. Not since the man acted as a savior to the dark haired, blue eyed tragedy that was Abigail Hobbs, something they had not discussed since his taking on his newest case. Though, that did not mean it was far from either of their minds.

This evening, their conversation returned to the topic of a Hobbs. Not Abigail, something Will was unsure of whether he was thankful for or robbed of, but Garrett Jacob Hobbs.

Lecter seemed to agree with the subject, prompting him to discuss his view of Hobbs as a victim or justice. All Will could see the man as was "dead", or so he told Dr. Lecter. He could neither deny that it was harder to imagine killing after having done it himself, nor could he deny it was easier to understand the aftermath of some of it, the amazement and power that came with having met with death and continued living. This new experience he had to connect with the monsters he was supposed to help hunt is what turned their conversation to that: the new case, something Will was easier to let on about, trusting the man more than he was comfortable with.

But there was something else to it, too, something beyond all the talking and the reciprocation that they shared with one another, and Dr. Lecter knew this by the way Will was holding up, by how he seemed prepared. When Hannibal brought up the structure of fungus and its mirroring that of the human brain, Will's face did not give any notion of surprise, only a twitch of what should have been a nod, confirming his thoughts. Yet, he did not agree verbally. He did not encourage Hannibal to continue to build on this theory. The lack of response sparked a sense of being robbed in the older man, yet not enough to ignore the curiosity that came with such of lack of response.

"What I said does not surprise you," he said, leaning back in his chair, taking in Will's body as a whole, wanting to see the man better as to read what the man was too afraid to say.

Will hesitated.

He felt his fingertips warm, how there was a sinking in his stomach as he was confronted with the inevitable. The air around him was thinning, yet the man before him seemed to breathe fine. Once again, he felt a bout of jealousy towards the doctor. He was at the heart of major decision, to speak on something dear to him, or to hide it away in an attempt at shielding it from those that might otherwise harm or take it.

It being a scar-faced waitress with alarming insight.

"It does not," Will said, attempting to look uninterested in discussing this further. Manipulation was not his strong-suit, and by the stiffness with which he sat, Hannibal could so clearly see he was pressing on something of importance. Will's refusal only caused a grating sense of irritation to rise within him. After all, Hannibal had been nothing but courteous to the mess that was Will Graham. He had given with intentions to receive, yet Will was falling short with his offers. Hannibal told himself that it was only fair to press further if Will would not at least satisfy his curiosity.

"This was not your discovery," Hannibal assumed, staring at him more. Had it been Will's, he was certain the man would have shared. After all, his views on Hobbs were being trusted with, and that was not an easy confession. No, if it was his own, Will would have included it whenever he walked in, whenever they were going over his recent thoughts and actions. The longer his words rested, the more truth of it appeared. Will's face was twisting into a slight cringe, not wanting to go in the direction Hannibal was leading them in, but he hadn't a sound reason to turn away from it. He was bound by the trust Hannibal thrust upon him.

It was bad enough as it was for Jack to drag him and her into his office, showing a slight obsession with the young woman as she recounted her thoughts, even more when Will could only find himself in agreement with her. She was cripplingly uncomfortable in Jack's office, even more so when she answered questions in monosyllables, not wishing to give any more than what was demanded, her eyes staring anywhere other than the eyes of both Jack and him as if she were ashamed of her own findings. Will feared that she was beginning to become like him: unable to maintain eye contact. She even picked up her own method of avoiding Jack's stern gaze. She found a way of hiding her face behind her hair that made it clear how agonizing it was for her to be the object of human attention.

Human attention.

Will felt robbed by Jack when their usual nights of company were altered. Her kept her back to him, only allowing his dogs the luxury of her attentions. A part of him wanted to be angry at her for including him in her mistrust of Jack, but instead he felt more inclined to shield her, a difficult task as he understood the work, the memories, that would follow her home. The morning he saw darker colors under her eyes was the morning he insisted that she not be brought into FBI Headquarters to further examine the bodies. The last thing he wanted for her was to see them up close.

"She gave her interpretation. She's done," he told Jack.

As much as he wanted to tuck her away, somewhere far from where anyone could harm her, he found himself with a growing sense of curiosity. As long as he had known her, he wasn't able to come to much a conclusion about her. He'd seen her apartment. There were no mementos, no tokens of sentimentality. All there were was the necessities. Nothing more. On her person, when not in her waitress uniform, she was adorned in solid and neutral colors, plain and unassuming. No brand, no label. No jewelry. Nothing to identify her with, nothing to set her apart from hundreds of people. By the way she moved in those clothes, in her apartment, he knew that she was used to this, but the anonymity she adorned herself could not have been natural to her from birth. He was certain of that, but anything else was left to interpretation.

Hence why he was giving the luxury of honesty to Hannibal Lecter.

The man came to the conclusion of connectivity on his own, knowing far more about fungi than he, a well rounded skill set of understanding others.

Will would be a fool not to utilize such a skilled person's help if it came to piecing together anyone one else, yet that was the problem. This woman was not someone else. She was someone he cared for, despite knowing little of. He devoted so much of his time to looking or watching her. Even lying on the ground, napping under the protection of his watchful dogs, she was the subject of his worries. She was precious in her own right.

That preciousness was what gave him enough reason to mention her.

"Jack has a new addition to 'the team'," he explained, grimacing at the word "Team." If there were anything for certain, it was that if there was a team, the two of them would be outsiders. Unwanted and unwelcomed for the most part.

"Do you not like this new addition?"

"I do."

"So this is the cause of your displeasure?"

Will did not answer that verbally. His scowl and silence was enough.

"Tell me about this 'new addition'."

There was no question.

It was times like these when Will remembered who had power when it came to the two of them.

Lecter, in all that he gave Will, was known to assert some claim to power, especially when he wanted something. Will originally thought, for just a moment, that it might be his company. Of course, he was confused as to why, but he felt as though the man extended his graces for that purpose. It was what drew Will to him, opening his mind for the man, only to be reminded at times like this that he was still a patient. Patient. The word made his face twist with disgust. Though he was no stranger to the idea of instability, his instability, it gave him no comfort to be treated for it. If being treated is what these sessions were.

But Will would go along with it.

He told himself that it was for that rubber stamp, that he was acting only in his best interests, but, deep down, he knew that he did want to talk about her. He did want to have Dr. Lecter take a look at the woman, helping him unravel her, to see her better and more clearly.

He wanted to see her as he felt she saw him.

"She's under-qualified," Will began with.

It was insulting. The bitterness in his voice was unmasked, taking Dr. Lecter by surprise.

Those objects of scorn in the eyes of Will were not subjects that came with this much reluctance. Hannibal knew that such revulsion was not for the woman, but the position that the woman was in.

"Does her presence offend you?"

"No."

This answer was quick, stern, reading of nothing short of complete and utter honesty. The look in his eyes when he said it, such bright and burning offense taken with the idea that he would find this woman offending was a surprise. Not even the mention of Alana Bloom had brought such a rise from Will.

The right corner of Hannibal's lips lifted ever the slightly, fighting a smirk. He looked and felt proud. His pride was in having found a new asset, a new tool to pry open Will's mind, clearing it of uncertainties and inhibitions, liberating the man of some weight to make room for himself.

Hannibal was not immune to loneliness.

"I'm offended with Jack having brought her into..." Will couldn't find the right words to the state that he found himself trying to claw his way out of, the place where she was slowly sinking into. "She shouldn't have even _met_ Jack." Their having met was like some twisted form of serendipity.

It placed him in a foul mood to even think about.

"You feel as though Jack has taken something of yours."

"I feel as though he he's taken something that isn't his," Will corrected.

As tempting as it was to think of her as "something of his", he couldn't find it within himself to do so. She wasn't tethered to anyone or anything, as far as he knew. Although she liked him - or seemed to like him - he held no doubts that if she wished, she could drop everything and become a memory that would fade over time. She felt like a ghost sometimes. Her movements were silent, never letting herself be close enough to touch most of the time. She was a doe in the woods, sometimes daring to get closer to a person, but at the slightest of sounds, she would disappear back into her surroundings. He could never have a claim to something so free.

Hannibal saw the conflicting thoughts overcome Will, so he pressed further.

"What is it that angers you about her being there?"

Will's eyes focused on the doctor. First, his gaze was blank, but slowly his thoughts began to turn like gears, working away at trying to find a safe, yet honest answer. Minutes passed by in nothing but silence. Eventually, he found himself with an answer.

"She shouldn't be in the company of the dead."

When he found her, he was almost uncertain if she was living or dead. Dull eyes glancing up from a book when he first walked into that diner. Sun deprived skin that almost looked cold colored only slightly with frustration at her dropping of the first omelet, followed by anxious glances at him in an attempt to see if he bared witness to her faults. She had the look of a ghost, especially donning an old and ill fitting uniform.

The process of seeing her back to that of the living was not easy.

To have her be undone in the same work he was escaping when he first met her seemed like a waste. It felt like a slap to the face.

She deserved to be surrounded by life.

He'd seen the way she lit up with his dogs, the smile on her face, the glimpse of vulnerability, yet strength that came over her when he'd taken her on a walk through a park one day. He could remember how mystified she looked by the sight of a butterfly, or the smell of a flower. And when the sun touched her skin, she looked as if she were touched by warmth for the first time.

In all the pleasure she took in life, in being around it, how could he not want to surround her with it?

A part of him saw her as a victim. Of what, he did not know, but he wanted to save her all the same. Even if all he could give her was a shabby, but cozy house, a place by the fireplace besides critically worn in couches and armchairs with nothing except dull books off of paint-chipping shelves to read, he would give it all to her. There was once a time when he wanted to share such a comfort with that of Alana Bloom, but such a well-put together woman wouldn't have found herself fitting in such a life. But her? Bella? He could so easily picture it from the second he came back, finding her already settled into the vision he held in his mind of home.

"I haven't known her that long."

He knew her longer than he knew Dr. Lecter.

"You seem attached to her."

"I am."

There was little time when he looked at her and didn't see something that wasn't his to care for. She may not have been _his,_ but he would make a claim that she was his to watch over, to look after. Jack wouldn't. Zeller, Price, or Katz wouldn't. Although, he was fairly certain that Price had taken a liking to the woman, but not enough to tell her when to tap on the breaks before she crashed. She hadn't someone like Hannibal to monitor her, if that was even what Hannibal was doing. It didn't feel like the psychiatrist was monitoring her. He felt less like a patient and more...

He couldn't put his finger on what exactly he felt like they were.

Hannibal was a slippery man.

And that slippery man was looking at him with a dangerous level of curiosity, but Will was none the wiser.

Blissfully unaware that he was bringing a second lamb to the water where a lion waited to feast.

 ** _Hannibal Lecter's House, Baltimore, Maryland._**

This was the second time that woman came up in a conversation.

Sitting there to his right, Jack Crawford sat at his table, feasting on "pork" loin. Loin served with a Cumberland sauce of red fruits. Strawberries, raspberries, and currants. The man went on about his lack of cooking experience, admitting to being less than adept at the art, but his appreciation for the meal set before him was genuine.

The man went on about his mother, his wife, ultimately before speaking on Will Graham after washing his guilt down with the most expensive wine he had yet to taste, unaware of this milestone.

Jack mentioned his surprise at Will seeing him, Hannibal, again when he had been "so adamant about not going" before. Hannibal pointed out that their first session was under pressure by none other than Jack himself. He pointed out that although their meeting was sour, that did not necessarily mean that they were certain to be adversaries, to which Jack made a point of saying that the real enemy to Will would be those defending the people they tried putting away. Hannibal feigned agreement.

He needed Jack.

The man was a commander, a conqueror, who was useful before and would be useful again. With each sip of wine, the man grew more relaxed, the more he spoke on Will, on how he was not sure if Will would come back into the field after "the Hobbs case."

Hannibal pressed on his past, knowing exactly who he'd lost, using that loss to pry for more weakness, more assets to his future. A dangerous future it was, always flirting with the likes of the law, but one like him needed that flirtation, a thrill in finding a safe place behind the enemy, and Jack had a strong back from the guilt Hannibal gave him years ago to hide behind.

His investment coming to his aid later than he originally anticipated pleased him.

"Will isn't happy with me," Jack mentioned. Hannibal pretended to not know why, and that was when Jack began confiding in him again. "There's this woman-"

"A woman?" he inquired. He had a professional curiosity when it came to Will and those around him, those who shaped him. Who this woman was to Will was of some importance to Hannibal.

Jack's face twisted with uncertainty.

"I don't know the nature of their relationship, if that's what you're asking, Dr. Lecter," Jack answers, more irritated with his not knowing than he was at being asked. Hannibal pictured Jack as a child, being that one student that grew angry at his teacher because of his own lack of knowledge. If he was, he had his anger better tethered down now, as he lost the tension in his shoulders at Hannibal's warm smile.

The man was so easily blinded.

"This woman is..." Jack paused, thinking on how exactly he could describe her. He couldn't find the right words. "She's like Will, but not like him, if that makes any sense. Different, yet similar."

"She has an empathy disorder?" Hannibal asked. He was enlightened with the idea of having caught not one but two empathetic fishes in his net, wanting to grasp them in his hands and tuck them into a golden cage until they were ready for true freedom. The prospect of having two, however, was a comfort. Should one fail, there would be another to replace. Another chance to do better. It would have been in poor taste not to be pragmatic, in his eyes. He was a man of the highest esteem. It would be ill fitting of his well tailored person suit to not show his interest.

"I doubt it," Jack said with a shake of his head. "No one can do what Will does. No one can empathize to the level he does. Can't say anyone would want to, though," he added with a shrug.

Hannibal disagreed.

Though, Jack was not the man to feel loneliness as one like him.

Hannibal knew the feeling of being alone, singular by his own right.

"Will views her as being under-qualified."

Jack winced at this.

"She may not have the training of a proper person in this field, but Will shouldn't be one to judge. He didn't pass the screening for it."

Hannibal wondered if Jack was going to make it a habit of trying to negate Will's words when they weren't on the subject of a killer.

"She's far more intelligent than she lets on," Jack said after being suffocated by the silence, feeling the need to defend himself and his decisions. "She may not be a prodigy for the FBI - Not that she has done anything in the opposite of the law. I checked-"

Jack looked into her background and found nothing.

Absolutely nothing.

Her previous employment was short, the one Will told him about in his speech as to why Jack shouldn't have even made an offer to her. Her credit was clean. Her education concerned him. She was top of her class until she dropped out of college. However, dropping out of college was hardly unusual considering her current position before he found her. He knew that she was "under-qualified. His main concern was her criminal history. He wanted to know if there were anything as small as traffic tickets, and there was nothing.

It was spotless.

"- I simply belief that if there were a prodigy for Will's ability to interpret a crime, she would be that prodigy."

Hannibal could see how troubled Jack was by this woman. It would be a waste to let it go nowhere. Wastefulness was one of the uglier sides of rudeness.

"Yet you are worried."

"I'd be a fool not to worry. She isn't Will. She's never been involved with any law enforcement as far as anyone can tell..."

"But?" Hannibal prompted, knowing the look on Jack's face.

Despite his audacity, Jack didn't want to speak against her. She could jeopardize everything, yet, at the same time, she could carry them farther than they would have with Will alone. Either was probable, and that's what had him so torn. He was worried against speaking against her in the case that she was either.

"But I can't be certain," Jack finished, shaking his head in disappointment.

If there was one thing having his job taught him, it was that intuition didn't mean anything without proof. Intuition wasn't reliable until there was something to back a claim. How many times had he brought news to a family that someone they knew and loved was a monster underneath all that familiarity? How many times did they claim that there was no possible way it was them?

Jack's reservations were not uncalled for, but he couldn't continue treating her with a volatile mix of welcome and distance.

But he could have his fears silenced with Hannibal's help, and the doctor knew this all too well as shown by the smirk on his face, the one mistaken as a crooked smile.

"I would like to offer up my services once again, should you want it," Hannibal suggested.

Jack latched onto the offer faster than he should have, allowing an unspoken power shift to occur, but he needed this alternative to worrying. He was beginning to recognize the irritable, unpleasant, unhappy person he was when he was first put on the job: the person he thought he left behind when Will retired into a teaching position.

"Do you think she'll take to you like Will did?" Jack asked somewhat bitterly. There was a sour taste on his tongue every time Will looked at him. The last thing he needed was for this woman to look at him that way as well.

There was an innocence about her, one that he wanted to trust in, but it was too unorthodox for his conscience to fully go through with trusting. He blamed it on her having the look of a victim. And he knew all too well that victims of horrible crimes did not exclude them of having done things just as horrible. His suspicions of Abigail Hobbs was enough to prove this.

"I believe everyone likes talking. It rids of the feeling of loneliness. Our minds want us to share."

Even someone like him grew lonely.

 _ **The Office of Hannibal Lecter,**_ ** _Baltimore, Maryland_**

She liked Saturdays. She liked them because she would spend it at Will's. All sentimental things set aside, his house was relatively unfrequented: not only was it far out from the usual cities, but because it so easily fell invisible in all its innocuous nature. Usually, a Saturday entailed spending her time on the floor beside the couch, staring out at the quiet world around his house or reading one of the books from Will's shelf. But on one Saturday, Jack decided to knock on their door, breaking that peaceful silence, calling on them. He directed Will to the FBI Headquarters, and her in the opposite direction of Baltimore, Maryland. He took her favorite things about Saturdays and split them down the middle.

She despised him before she even realized where he sent her.

The building itself didn't look like the typical haphazard maze that were psychiatrists offices.

It looked elegant as much on the outside as it did on the inside. On the outside, it looked to be a historical building, one that was taken over by the very person that was standing before her.

It was beautiful.

When walking in, she entered through an arched doorway, only to be met with a room even more so. The room was high, with arches that supported a catwalk above its pristine grey columns. On the same level as the catwalk was a personal library. Looking at them, she felt as though she knew the man before her prided intelligence, setting personal enlightenment high above anything else.

He was a renaissance man.

She could tell by the uniformity of the office. The decorum that came together fluidly like the strings to a renowned composition.

There was a proud brilliance in all of it, even in the single colored red wall, an unorthodox choice of coloring for a psychiatrist, yet proud all the same.

Everything was elevated to a level of art...

But she felt it.

An unnerving slash of violence beneath the elegance.

He drained the air out of her lungs with his welcoming her inside.

She didn't feel safe, and he knew it.

She saw him adjust himself subtly. She saw the charming smile slowly form on his lips, and she felt her heart almost rip itself apart in fear of this man, this _creature_ , before her.

She knew her place the second she stepped inside the building.

His smile did nothing for that god forsaken sense of fear.

He was a handsome man. She let her eyes wander over his features, drowning in his sculpted features. The smile was as well crafted as his suit. She imagined that he was the kind of man to smile at someone, causing them to be assaulted with feelings of warmth spreading in their chests, completely charmed.

But she was not charmed.

She was _scared_.

It disturbed her on a level that shook her to her core. She felt as though she was being threatened by simply breathing the same air as him, as if she were defying some sort of natural order.

That smile held power.

He knew his place and that was above her. He knew that she recognizes what he is, but that she was too afraid to do anything about it. The smile was knowing.

Without speaking, in the short few moments they were in each other's company, he could see it. The obedient nature in the woman's eyes as her nature bowed before that of something stronger, something elevated in life. She knew that obedience would be the wisest way to keep her skin on her back, but what unnerved her even more was that she felt almost pleased with the obedience.

It felt sinful.

"Would you like to take a seat, Ms. Bennet?" he asked, stepping aside.

She knew it wasn't a request, and soon found herself seated directly across from him.

She tried to stop her squirming.

He noticed this.

He was pleased by it.

There was silence.

By then, he would have taken control for a moment, if only to direct the person before him. However, this time, he wanted to see her, how she reacted with being given control when she so clearly recognized it was not for her to possess.

Her discomfort struck him at first. Her ability to pick up on his own nature, even just a hint of it, was stunning. He could see why Jack wanted her in the field.

She had so much potential.

She was rough around the edges, yes. She, like Will, lacked the refinement that Hannibal surrounded himself with, but she, like Will, was a perfect opportunity to craft something _exquisite_. With someone already shaped into the person they would undoubtedly always be, someone like Alana Bloom or Jack Crawford, there was no potential to see life and everything in it in the way he saw it. But here they were, two perfect specimens that could be shaped in his image.

It was enticing.

To his surprise she was the one who took it upon herself to speak first. She trained her eyes on him, as if waiting for his sophistication to drop and whatever he kept underneath such grace to rise up. She kept her eyes on him to flee the moment things became too dangerous. A part of him wondered if she would be able to get away.

"I tried to prepare for this," she admitted carefully, letting each syllable fall from her lip slowly. She reminded him of Bedelia in that moment. The difference was that Bedelia had seen him only because he wanted her to see him. He was the one to reveal himself. With this woman, she had picked up on enough that she knew well enough to be as cautious as she was.

"Do you believe that was necessary?" he asked, wondering if such preparation was because of Jack digging too deep or if she simply would prepare for this regardless. Was this personal or professional preparation? He wondered what would please him more, if it was for Jack or for him.

"I believe it's useless now," she answered. He saw her clench her jaw, how she swallowed the fear brewing within her.

"Why is that?"

Her eyes flashed with something daring. Her lips parted as if to make a quick response. He felt robbed when he saw those lips close without any sound leaving her. At first, he thought her to be holding back her words in fear of offending him, but the look in her eyes told him different. She was trying to draw him out, just as he was trying to draw her out. He found it endearing to some degree, deciding to humor her, if only for a moment.

"You know why you are here," he stated.

"I know _who_ wants me here. I guess I can understand his reasons," she said. He saw something flash over her face. It was well hidden, only shown by a spiteful twitch of the lips.

She was angry.

"You say you can understand his reasons." She gave a slight nod. "Yet, you seem angry. One might think you are offended."

She let a scoff leave her lips.

"Offended?" she echoed, bitterness all but dripping from lightly chapped lips. "I'm angry less with his wanting to be careful than I am with him purposefully keeping me from an investigation that I can help with."

It was partially true. Only, she was using anger to hide her worry. Now that she knew what Will was seeing, she didn't want him left alone in it all.

Hannibal didn't know this. He only suspected that she had within her that same drive Will had in him. A compulsion to save others.

"Do you feel he has slighted you by preventing your participation in this investigation?" he asked, wanting to keep a focuson her anger.

This is where he sees how much she resembles a doe in foreign territory.

She knew she was out of place. She felt as though she were a stain on the grand masterpiece that was his office when she first walked in. He knew she felt this way. He'd seen that cautious woman subtly search for all exits when she'd stepped fully inside. It reminded him of patients that survived cruelty. What reminded him even more of this is the careful way she walks, taking in her surroundings, changing to each new circumstance. He knew she was well versed in the art of survival. Yet, now he sees it. He has not moved against her in a hostile or aggressive manner, yet he could see tension run through her body, travelling through her. In a manner of seconds, she looked prepared to walk straight out the door and never look back.

She would be forsaking her job with the FBI in doing so, but he suspected by how she compared to Will that she was not as concerned with staying. In this, he suspected that there was more to her anger than Jack's keeping her at a distance.

"I don't feel slighted," she said with a shake of her head. "I feel afraid."

This was when he truly felt she was testing him, watching how he reacted to fear.

He wondered who made her this way.

What had she seen?

He could not linger on that though. He was too focused on that fear. He was wondering why she was scared.

Perhaps Jack was right to suspect she was hiding something.

"I know Jack is looking at me. Though, I cannot imagine that it is purely professional. I've heard from Will. Psych evals are not a formality," she states, echoing Will.

Hannibal knew she was placing trust in him. She knew that by admitting to her fear in Jack looking at her gave enough to suspect there was something she didn't want to be found. She was trusting him not to let Jack know of this. She wanted to test him.

He could see it now.

She _was_ prepared to drop everything and leave.

He couldn't simply let her go.

Shifting in his seat, ignoring how she sat straighter, shifting some weight to her feet, truly readying herself to at least attempt at running, he reached for his pen. Most would have been comforted by the sight of his hands being busied with something else. She did not. This time she did stand.

She was faster than he expected.

She was at a safer distance away, to the side of her chair, hand on the shoulder of it, readied to move it, to use it to obstruct a direct path to her.

He took no offense to this. In fact, he found himself even more curious than before, wondering who hurt her to the point of her having learned to react in such a fashion.

"You and Will have spoke of our sessions," he stated, purposefully turning his back to her as he walked across his office towards his desk. He hoped to calm her by doing this.

"I did."

She sounded farther than she should have. He imagined she took the opportunity to put more distance between them than he gave.

"Then you know you needn't worry," he said, letting his pen glide over a paper he had prepared since the moment Jack decided on allowing him to give her an evaluation.

There was silence as he finished signing his name. For a moment, he thought she'd left. Looking over his shoulder, he was delighted to find her, still present, looking carefully interested. It was clear that Will did not divulge this part of their first session. He was leaning towards Will not wanting to worry her rather than maintain an image for himself.

Yes. He could see the appeal of wanting to shield a woman like her.

He plucked the piece of high quality stationary from the desk, holding it out to her, an offer.

She stared at him, not the offering, for a moment, contemplating if it was worth her safety to go near him. And when her eyes left his face, they searched for his other hand, the one not holding the paper.

She was looking for a weapon.

He turned his body, fully facing her.

And she stared at him.

Yet, slowly, but surely, she came to him like a lamb to the water.

She took the paper from him, delicate fingers curling over the textured page, letting her eyes move over the words.

And she knew.

She was taken back for a moment, when her eyes fell back upon this man.

It had been her eighteenth birthday. Her eyes were puffy from crying, her fifth time crying that day.

She found herself hiding in a church, knowing it was the last place her family would suspect her to be hiding. She seated herself on a pew, eventually falling onto the kneeler. She hadn't prayed since her brother's funeral. She hadn't prayed in two years, yet her fingers laced together. Leaning her head forward, she touched her hands to her forehead, as if connecting her "prayer hands" to her head would amplify the sound of her prayers, as if the god she was supposed to believe in would finally hear her.

She didn't know if she stayed there for minutes or hours, but somewhere in that time, she'd begun crying. Sobs began wrecking through her body until she could no longer hear anything except her own sorrows. She hadn't heard the sounds of heel's striking the tiled floors until she heard the woman's voice.

"What do you think you're doin'?"

When she looked up, she saw her grandmother, staring down at her with a coldness she hadn't always knew.

"Praying," she answered brokenly, wiping her eyes. Crying was unacceptable in her family. She could still hear her mother's voice in her youth, echoing in her ears, saying, 'Stop crying, or I'll give you _something_ to _really_ cry about.'

"Why would you do that?" her grandmother asked. She could remember how confused she was. Her grandmother was always leaning towards being too zealous. She couldn't find words in time. "Don't you know?"

"Know what, Ama?"

"God will not hear you," her grandmother said. "John 9:31 'Now we know that god heareth not sinnners'. He will not answer you."

She could remember a time when her grandmother was kind, but now the woman was just like everyone else. Her grandmother left her with a desperation for what everyone wants - love, affection, attention.

How deeply her grandmother's words cut her.

She could still feel the pain resting on her chest.

Her grandmother scoffed, shaking her head, disgust in her eyes.

Looking back now, Bella thought maybe she was right to. Maybe her grandmother saw exactly who she would run to in the end.

"Best go and hide elsewhere. You may plead for redemption, but you won't find it here. He won't answer to someone like you."

And she didn't.

She ran and hid herself far from the church, from the eyes of god.

She could remember the sinful feeling that filled her in that moment when she walked out of the church, abandoning faith in one that never seemed to answer her.

She remembered that feeling in this moment, when she looked at Dr. Lecter, seeing that same smile that took her by storm.

"Your Psychological Evaluation. You're totally functional and more or less sane," he said, his voice sounding more seductive than she remembered it.

She studied him for a moment, understanding that if she accepted it, she would be in his debt.

She glanced back at the door, contemplating if it was worth it. She remembered how easy it was to leave. She'd done it more times than she could count. It shouldn't have been hard.

But it was.

All those times before, she had nothing to lose by leaving.

This time she did.

And so, she looked back at him, turning her body fully towards him. If she hadn't walked out of that church all those years ago, she would have prayed that she wouldn't regret this.

"Thank you, Dr. Lecter."

"Would you like to continue, now?"

The price of this rubber stamp would be continuing therapy.

Did Will pay the same price? Or did he simply come to Hannibal of his own volition?

"Of course," she answered, looking back at the two empty chairs.

They were the color of ashes.

How fitting, she thought as she took a seat.

As she settled into her seat, she could almost hear her grandmother's voice.

"You ought run to the devil. He'll be waiting."

And as she looked at him, seated like a king across from her, she knew it.

 _I ran to the devil, and he was waiting._

* * *

 _ **Okay, so initially, this chapter was supposed to be longer, but I really wanted to put something out since I didn't last week... Or the week before that...**_

 _ **But, in my defense, I was AP testing! And this week is finals!**_

 _ **So, I hope you guys don't hate me too much for cutting this shorter than I intended, but I promise the next chapter will be just as... Eventful?**_

 ** _In the next chapter, I'm looking forward to introducing Alana and Abigail to this story so... Stick with me?_**

 ** _Once again, I am so thankful for people reading this! Especially those who reviewed because they really motivate me to continue, to know people enjoy this!_**

 ** _That being said, thank you all, and I hope you stay._**


	5. Chapter 5

**All rights to Hannibal (TV) belong to NBC.**

* * *

 _ **Johns Hopkins Hospital,**_ ** _Baltimore, Maryland_**

He told her to see Abigail Hobbs.

 _"She is the subject of Jack's suspicions. I think it would benefit you both to be well acquainted."_

He failed to mention the girl was unconscious.

"Indefinitely," one of the nurses said when she asked.

Still, she found herself sitting to the left of the Hobbs girl, staring.

When she asked Will to take her, he was skeptic at first. He looked at her with unfamiliar eyes, as if she'd asked a terribly rude question. She admitted it being Hannibal's suggestion. There was no spoken agreement, nor a written one. Surely, she wasn't required to keep him and what they discussed a secret. She wasn't bound by the Physician-patient confidentiality.

That was something she knew she'd agreed to.

That was the price of her rubber stamp: Therapy.

He gave her a number to call when she was ready for a second session.

That had been a week before.

She didn't know when he wanted her to make it. She wondered if he was waiting for her to, if he would be angered if she didn't make an appointment in the near future.

Unlike Will, she didn't trust the doctor.

When she looked at him, she found him silently sleeping on the couch, one foot propped on an ottoman, the other on the ground. Somewhere in the time he'd begun sleeping, it must have fallen.

Will Graham did not rest easy.

She knew this because he'd told her.

He'd eventually worked up the nerve to ask her if she was getting enough sleep, knowing that she wasn't. He told her that if the job was "too much" for her, then she should consider going back to the diner. And she did. She considered fleeing back to Benny's. That was yesterday, and here she was, staring at a young girl. A stranger in the truest sense of the word.

She looked back to the first night they met up until this day, and she knew he was no stranger to restless nights. She figured that was one of the circumstances that lead her to going to his house for the first time. He, too, didn't trust in the night.

She quietly rose from her seat, walking across the room and searched for any extra pillows and blankets. It took her longer than expected, but eventually she found it. She then carefully covered Will with a blanket, even going as far as to gingerly move his feet onto couch. When she was done, she moved to the lamp. Just as her fingertips grazed against the smooth switch, she stopped herself.

Will didn't deserve to wake in the dark.

And so, she simply returned to her seat, and resumed her staring.

For an hour, she studied the girl before her.

She was a pretty.

She had dark hair that contrasted nicely against youthful, pale and freckled skin. She had delicate features. Sad, down-turned eyes, rounded and rosy lips, and a straight nose.

Yes, Abigail Hobbs was a pretty girl.

She wasn't conventionally pretty.

No, she had a timeless kind of beauty.

Bella imagined that she had the kind of face that a painter would want to capture, spending hours trying to get every single detail right.

It was a delicate kind of beauty.

Bella imagined Abigail to be a good girl. She could picture the girl, walking through the halls of a high school, books in hand, a smile on her face as she listened to a best friend gossip. She couldn't picture Abigail being the one to gossip, but she imagined her to be the kind of girl to listen, to take joy in the simple high school experience. She can't imagine Abigail being one to be like the kids who destroy themselves, burying themselves in unhealthy habits. She can't imagine Abigail to chase after "the crowd." All she could imagine was a girl. A lonely girl, yes, but not an entirely miserable girl. Then again, she imagined Abigail to feel that way. To feel that sense of life closing in on her long before it almost did.

She imagined that Abigail had a journal stashed somewhere. She imagined Abigail pouring out her heart. A part of her almost wanted to ask Jimmy Price if he'd let her check the evidence storage and see if they'd found it. A part of her wanted to read it, to look into the life of Abigail Hobbs so closely that the rest of the world would be so far away because that is what the life of a teenager is.

That is what childhood is...

Even the sad ones.

Bella thought back on her own childhood, wondering if she would want to go back?

In truth, she doubted it. Her childhood ended earlier than most, but even before it ended, she would not dare to go back. To look back, yes. To long to go back, maybe. If only for a little bit.

Of course, she knew her thoughts on Abigail could be entirely wrong.

Still, she wanted to believe the girl before her, the one who would have a nasty scar on her neck, wasn't who Jack thought her to be. Bella wanted to believe that Abigail was good, or, at least, good enough to be spared of more suffering.

Bella's thoughts were cut off by the sound of heels clicking, each sounding louder and louder.

Instinctively, she sat up straighter, craning her neck to see the person who those fast approaching footsteps belonged to.

She was a _beautiful_ woman.

That woman was a beauty. With rich brown hair, eyes that looked as beautiful as the sky on a clear day, and a smile resting on shapely lips. She respected his space, always avoiding being alone, which he didn't know whether to appreciate or take mild offense to. It was easier to forgive a woman with a smile like the one she wore.

In a matter of seconds, Bella was taken back in awe of the rich brown haired, blue eyed woman without as much as a hair out of place, and then captured by a dull ache of insecurity.

The woman hadn't noticed her at first. She noticed Will. There was a spark of familiarity in her eyes, just as there was a brief pang of jealousy in Bella's as the woman slipped off her shoes, smiling softly at Will who was sound asleep. Bella was too busy watching the woman, watching how she responded to Will, that when the woman turned, she was there, looking like a deer caught in the headlights.

"Who are you?" the woman asked in a calm and collected tone. Bella looked to Will, as if he would be awake and do what he'd done since Jack first laid eyes on her: Stand in front of her, shielding her.

But Will was asleep.

Looking back to the woman, Bella gave an answer.

"Bella," she said quietly, taking a step behind the chair she once sat in, another barrier between them. "I'm Will's..."

She didn't know how to finish that sentence.

"Colleague," the woman finished for her, smiling as she stepped forward, offering a hand to shake. "Me too. I've heard about you from Jack," she added.

Bella felt some of her blood drain from her face, knowing full well that Jack wasn't the fondest of her.

"Alana Bloom," she introduced herself as.

A groan sounded from behind the woman. In the time that the woman turned around, Bella moved. The woman protectively moved towards Will, but Bella, ignoring the jolt of jealousy at the sight of the woman moving towards him, walked out of the room.

There was no excuse as to why she left. All there was in her was that same sense of insecurity. Why it was there, why she felt jealous, she wouldn't dare admit aloud.

Will, who was barely waking from a long nap, opened his eyes, expecting to see Bella sitting there, watching Abigail as she had been when he first slipped into sleep. Instead, he found himself seeing Alana Bloom, staring down at him. He habitually moved to rub his eyes of sleep, but felt warm wool rub against his skin. Looking down, he found himself covered with a blanket. He looked up to Alana, half surprised.

"It wasn't me. It was her," Alana said, turning and pointing to a person that was no longer there.

In under a second, that feeling of warmth in his chest, that sense of security was replaced with slight disappointment.

"She was right there, I swear," Alana said quickly, a hopelessly beautiful smile on her face.

His only thought was that it hadn't the same charm as it used to.

 _ **Three Days Later**_

 _ **Johns Hopkins Hospital,**_ ** _Baltimore, Maryland_**

Will visited her later that day she'd left him alone with "Alana Bloom." He asked why she left, and was met with a sharp answer.

 _"I have another job."_

Her words carried a hurt tone. They both noticed, and they both were taken by surprise.

She then followed up with admitting that she was intimidated by Alana Bloom.

Will asked her why, and her silence was enough of an answer.

She didn't compare.

Like Abigail, she wasn't a conventional beauty and she knew it.

A part of her wondered if this was Hannibal's intentions, but also realized there was no way he could have known that she would have met Alana Bloom, much less know that she would have been jealous, which was a foreign experience in that she wasn't so much as wanting to be Alana Bloom, but that she imagined that she couldn't compare.

Compare.

She had to think Will was fond of her.

He didn't need to invite her over anymore. If one wanted the other's company, they would ask if the other wanted drinks. Soon, asking for drinks turned into just having drinks. It was a ritual of theirs, one that she broke when she chose to don her waitress uniform and go back to work for a night. It was spiting the trust they had in one another. After all, one must trust someone before making rituals with them.

In the end, she did go to work.

But he showed up right as her shift was ending, a sad smile on his face. She'd been relieved at being forgiven for her jealousy and anger, but that relief was short lived in that she worried he knew why she was jealous.

Why was she jealous?

It was the question she had been tormenting herself with while she sat at Abigail's bedside.

She considered it was the warm smile on Alana's face. It was foolish to think that the right to smile _that_ warmly at Will belonged to her. It was that the smile meant that Will had someone else. Bella was less concerned with the idea that this woman meant more than a friend would to Will - though, she did spend a considerable amount of time thinking on this, and that time spent caused her heart to whine with a dull ache - and more to do with the fact that he wasn't alone. Bella was under the impression that Will was just as alone as she was. That, to some degree, was one of the appeals of being with him. _Near him_ , she corrected.

This was why she came to visit Abigail again.

Will had dropped her off. He unofficially became her driver since her car broke down for the sixth time, the sixth being on the interstate, which lead to her car being hit by a much more expensive car that didn't slow down enough.

He promised to be back after his last class ended. Until then, she was going to spend time with Abigail.

It was the closest feeling to that she had when she was with Will: The comfort of not being alone without the downside of having to worry about what one had to be when they weren't. It was with that comfort that she was able to admit to herself a single truth.

She was _considerably_ attracted to Will Graham...

... and it terrified her.

Never in her life did she ever imagine herself being attracted with someone enough to look forward to actually being with them. She acknowledged from their first night drinking that she had "liked" him, that he was physically handsome. Yes, a bit messy and rough around the edges, but attractive none the less. She hadn't quite realized to the extent of that attraction until she saw him under the caring eyes of Alana Bloom.

Whatever "chance" she ever entertained the idea of having now seemed obsolete.

She couldn't imagine what it was like to be involved with someone. To be so intimate with another person, unafraid of what they might see in all the nakedness that came with a true relationship. She was unsure if she'd ever be able to have that. She needed someone just as socially maladjusted as she was, someone just as terrified as she was. To know Will wasn't as alone as she was, it shattered the dream.

She felt even more alone than she did before.

She would have felt more so if she hadn't Abigail. Even though she hadn't yet met the girl, she knew well enough that she, too, was all alone. Her whole life and everything in it had capsized, and if and when she woke, she would have to quickly learn how to swim.

 _Just like I did._

Bella looked down at her hands, not at all surprised to have found herself holding one of Abigail's.

"I won't let you be alone, Abigail. Not like I was," she whispered.

She knew the girl couldn't hear her, just as she didn't hear her grandmother telling her not to ever wake up when she was lying in a hospital bed unconscious. If she had, she probably would have listened.

A sigh left her lips.

"You shouldn't be here."

Her eyes widened as she turned her whole body, looking at the source of the voice.

Standing at the doorway was a man in his fifties, if she had to take a guess, in ill fitting green scrubs. Behind him was a gurney.

She knew he wasn't a doctor or nurse. He wouldn't have said what he had if he was either.

She didn't know who he was, but she would bet her life on him being dangerous.

It was the look in his eyes.

It was the frantic look of an animal caught in a trap, desperately trying to escape before some hungry predator came to collect.

She knew that look all too well.

 _ **Lecture Hall, F. B. I. Academy, Quantico, Virginia**_

He watched with great pleasure as the last of the trainees left the classroom. With a tired smile he removed his glasses for a moment, cleaning them before gathering the rest of his things, and heading towards the door. He kept his head up as he walked, though he still refused to make eye contact with anyone in the building. There was a cloud of ease over him, and for the first time in a while, he wasn't drained from the day.

Some of his students noticed this slight boost of energy.

He was both happy and guilty for having it.

When he went to Bella's apartment the night they'd visited Abigail, he was expecting her to explain why she left. He was under the impression that Alana may have noticed her, picked up on some of the things he had when they first met. He thought Alana, ever the compassionate and compulsive towards helping people might have pressed too much. Out of all the defensive people he'd met, Bella was one of the most sensitive to people's proximity, physically and mentally. He could recall how long it had taken him to go beyond just one conversation a night, and even then, it took her having to drink more than he should have been comfortable with. He went there to explain that Alana would never hold anything less than good intentions.

Yet, when she answered as to why she left, she spoke with a cold and biting tone. What concerned him the most was the forlorn look in her eyes. She'd pushed past him on her way out, both surprising him with her strength and that she would do something so... declarative. He'd come to know her as a woman of quiet waters, a stream that maneuvered around whatever would try to stop her. With a single act, he thought her more like the middle of the ocean, constantly changing, yet strong all the same.

He couldn't grasp what exactly it was until he spoke with Hannibal.

Will wasn't blind. He notice the doctor's eyes when he'd said her name, the way they flashed with interest. Will chose to ignore it, pursuing a greater mystery: why she was upset.

Hannibal was the one to direct him towards Alana Bloom and what his relationship to her might have implied. And with that little direction, Will could see it now.

She was jealous.

He doubted she was the kind to be jealous of Alana like most women would. He didn't think she would be envious of Alana. They were too different. To compare them felt wrong. It felt like something as inane as to compare two separate pieces of artwork from different eras. They were to be admired separately, not to be put aside one another in order to determine better quality.

Then he soon realized it wasn't Alana. Not truly.

She was jealous of Alana in the same way Will envied what Alana had with Hannibal. It wasn't the person. It was what the person was capable of. And Hannibal and Alana were all to easy to be envious of. The two were undeniably brilliant, carrying grace and beauty effortlessly. Alana's was softer, more like the first breath of spring whilst Hannibal was the brisk and clean cut of Winter's bite. Still, they were on a higher level, or so it felt at times.

He knew her well enough to know the shame she felt afterwards, the unspoken apologies on her lips when he sought her out again. He didn't give her the chance to apologize, making it clear she hadn't anything to be ashamed of by promising her dinner. He'd been fishing not too long ago, giving him the confidence to even attempt to prepare her a meal. He was not well versed with cooking most things, but fish? He knew fish.

He was too consumed with thoughts on her that he almost didn't hear the ring of his phone, the shrill tone that belonged to the one man that refused to be ignored: Jack.

With a tired sigh and furrowing brow, he answered.

"Yes, Jack?"

Not even a minute later, he jammed his phone into his pocket and was running.

 _ **Johns Hopkins Hospital,**_ ** _Baltimore, Maryland_**

Jack Crawford stared at the woman.

There were dark circles under his eyes, puffiness to the bottom lid. He hadn't slept more than five hours a night since she'd been put in the hospital. He hadn't slept well in three weeks. Or was it four? He could no longer remember.

He scratched his face, feeling his nails scrape against stubble. He neglected to shave.

His suit was wrinkled beyond the usual ones that came with the usual wear of the day. There was a coffee stain on his tie. He had a spare in his car. His Bella insisted on it since they'd been married. He didn't change it. He told himself it wasn't noticeable. There were far too many thoughts weighing on him to be concerned with something as small and insignificant as a tie.

He was a mess.

He used the palms of his hands, rubbing his eyes as if it would rid of the exhaustion.

He told himself he shouldn't be exhausted.

All he had done was stay in this damn hospital room.

He wasn't the only one.

Will was worse.

The man hadn't left her side.

Since the first night, the last time Jack visited, when she was checked in, Will was there, too consumed with intense worry to lash out at Jack. Had she not woken up the week before, had she not currently been asleep, he might have dared to finally do it.

"Is she doing any better?" Jack heard himself ask.

There was a fragility to his voice.

Will noticed.

"She's alive."

Jack winced at the biting tone.

Will was more than aware of Jack's past. He knew the tragedy of Miriam Lass, and he knew, without even sparing Jack a single glance in four weeks, Jack was riddled with guilt.

For a second time in the man's life, an innocent woman was lost under his watch.

The only consolation was that they were able to bring this one back.

Yet, in the end, that only made him guiltier.

He didn't have to face Miriam Lass. He didn't even have to face her family. She hadn't anyone. She truly was a woman married to work.

With Bella, it was different.

She had Will.

Jack may not have been clear on where the two stood relationship-wise, but to see Will, so terribly undone, was enough for him to know that he almost lost more than one person to Eldon Stammets.

He didn't want to imagine what that would have looked like, but he did.

He imagined having to call her family. He imagined her funeral. He couldn't imagine how long the services would be. She never spoke much on her personal life. Jack imagined a funeral as quiet as she was. There would be minimal flowers, the majority coming from him, guilt ridden. It would be in poor taste, he imagined, something he would suffer for at the hands of Will. Will would be there, overseeing it all, spending an alarming amount of time with the casket, savoring his last few moments before she was put in the ground.

Again.

When they caught Stammets, he was in the middle of burying her. Shovel in hand, a mound of dirt beside the shallow grave. It wasn't one of the worst sights he'd seen, yet it was one that would never leave him.

Will shot only once.

It should have been a relief that he didn't unload a magazine on Stammets as he had on Hobbs, but he wasn't. Jack was more concerned because of how quick Will was to shoot. Stammets was only barely reaching for his gun when a bullet took out a piece of his shoulder, violently throwing him back onto the soil he was going to use to bury that woman. Jack wasn't even sure if Will even saw him reach for the gun. It happened fast. One moment, Stammets was burying a woman alive, and in the next, he was on the ground, Will frantically digging with his bare hands to uncover _her_.

" _Help! Call for help!_ "

Jack can still hear the shouts rip through Will as he pulled her from her grave. Jack, for a moment, didn't see a brown haired "special" agent. For a second, just one single second, he saw blond. Miriam. Just as quickly, the sight faded and Katz was already calling on an ambulance, Price and Zeller rushing to Will's aid, checking her over to the best of their abilities. All the while, Jack was just _staring_. There was a clamor of approaching footsteps, a bustle of cops and paramedics overtaking the scene. Everyone had burst into action, but Jack just _stood_ there. Unable to move, unable to speak.

That was the very moment he began regretting ever being suspicious of her.

That same moment, Will was filled with anger, blinding anger towards Jack Crawford.

There was no pride in him telling Jack how right he was that Bella should have never been allowed in the field. Neither of them imagined her talking her way into martyring herself for the life of Abigail Hobbs, but only one of them was cautious enough to not want her in that position to be so close to a killer to begin with. What was even more infuriating was Jack's refusal to let her go. Even after all that happened, even after being reminded of his loss, he still had the mind of a conqueror.

 _"There are casualties in every war."_

His words left Will in a rage. If he could have, he would have moved her to a different hospital, staying with her until she was able to leave, and then he would take her away, tucking her somewhere where no one in the world could touch her, where no one could hurt her. It didn't seem at all possible to be any more protective of her, yet here he was, unwilling to even return to teaching so long as she was in the hospital. The only time he left was the past three days after Alana found out he'd been lying to the doctors, telling them she was his fiancée in order to have access to overnight visitation hours. The second it was nine, he was already in her room again.

The sight of her, so pale, so weak, so _lifeless_ , it stuck him, a blade burying itself into his chest, twisting with every time he looked at her again.

He blamed himself for not being there.

He blamed himself for being so taken with the fact Abigail was still alive, untouched, that he hadn't noticed her absence faster.

But how could he have predicted Stammets would take to her?

"She wasn't supposed to even be there," Will said softly, his eyes meeting Jack's. He looked just as exhausted.

"But she was."

"I was exactly where I was supposed to be."

Their eyes fell on _her_.

She looked better than she had been since Jack last saw her. There was more color to her cheeks, a liveliness in her eyes that was different from the lost and unfocused stare that she had before they'd lost her the first time.

"Bella-"

"Will," she said, barely above a whisper, pleading for his silence, for him to listen. Slowly, waiting for Will's lips to close, she looked to Jack. His own lips parted. He wanted nothing more to apologize to her.

For everything.

But he saw it. It was in her eyes.

Forgiveness.

"All I wanted when I accepted the job was to save someone. I know I'm not the most qualified. Hell, I probably got in the way - Did you even get him?"

Stammets was still recovering himself. He'd lost a lot of blood from where Will had hit him.

"We got him," Jack heard himself say. He felt obligated to give her that. He didn't want this guilt in his chest.

She gave him what he took as a smile, a weak, ghost of a smile.

"Don't... Don't give me that look," she told him, giving a faint shake of the head.

He hadn't realized he'd moved closer until he began to notice the slightest of movements in her. The shallow rise and fall of her chest. He began to wonder how much damage Stammets had done to her when he filled her with enough drugs to where she should have been unconscious indefinitely.

"This is the price of it. With everything comes a price, and I simply paid the consequences of protecting Abigail."

Jack wished she wouldn't mention the Hobbs girl.

It was easier to let go of his suspicions of Ms. Bennet.

She proved she was well enough for the job as Will was, placing the wellbeing of innocents before herself. The only problem he had was with her view on innocence.

Abigail Hobbs's was still under. To the media, she was already guilty. To Jack, she most likely was. However, to Will, to Bella, she was innocent, and that was the foundation to the wall between him and them. His only hope was to sway them to at least consider she might not be innocent, just as he was trying to see her as not guilty.

Compromise.

Jack was willing to compromise now more than ever, even if it was under the duress of a memory of a woman that was long gone.

 _I owe it to her._

"You won't have to pay that price again."

Jack's eyes fell on Will. The rugged looking detective was holding one of her hands in the both of his. His grip on her slender fingers was tight. Jack could hardly tell if it was him whose was shaking or hers. All he knew was the fragility in his eyes. He looked like a man who almost lost everything, like Jack had when he still had hope that Miriam was still alive.

When Bella's eyes reached his, he saw _it_.

There was terror in her face. The rise and fall of her chest quickened. The color was draining from her face. And her eyes...

She looked horrified. They were too wide, too startled. He, in all the times he'd seen her, even when she was among the dead, she never looked like this.

This was when Jack broke, his face twisting into a cringe.

Guilt crashed over him, breaking like a house made of glass finally falling, and with each second, it cut him, deeper and deeper.

"If you want," he said, feeling as though he'd swallowed the shards of guilt.

He didn't want to say it.

When he looked at her, all he saw was that young, bright, and fearless woman who got too close. He saw her so clearly before him that his heart cried own, almost ruining him. He wanted to be a better man. He wanted to agree with Will, to do the good thing and tell her that she did enough, to send her on her way. He wanted to be able to give her a better chance at a long and happy life, two things he couldn't give Miriam Lass.

He wanted to be a good man.

But he couldn't.

Jack was a man of justice.

And he learned his lesson.

Justice and goodness are not one and the same.

Goodness was letting the woman go.

Justice was keeping her, using her as a weapon against the injustice in the world.

The look on Will's face was of pure betrayal, and for a second time, Jack saw horror. What he didn't recognize that the horror in both of their eyes was one for the other person. Both were terrified of the other not being safe. Bella's fear came from the possibility of Will being alone, and Will's came from the possibility of having her by his side, in the line of danger once again.

With a deep breath, Jack found the strength to nod.

He felt as though he were condemning her. He knew that she, like Will, was the kind to martyr herself. She'd already proven that by accepting the job for the pure sake of taking the weight off of Will, by allowing a psychotic man to bury her in an attempt to spare a girl she didn't even know. He knew that she would say yes if he offered her a position, and that was why Jack felt guiltiness within him. He wondered how much blood would stain his hands before he met death. How much of it would be from someone young and innocent? How many casualties would haunt him? Would he have anything left of himself by then? He doubted it. With every loss of someone under his responsibility, there was a loss of himself.

All of it in the name of justice.

"Don't," Will said, pulling her arm, demanding to be seen. This was one of the few times Jack had seen Will so eager to look someone in the eyes. He wanted to be seen. That's what killed Jack. It was knowing that Will didn't want others to see what was within him, but to do so because he felt so strongly that nothing would be seen because his worry eclipsed it all. "You don't have to do this. You don't have to say yes," he reminded her, as if she didn't know this.

Jack wondered if she was like him, if justice preceded goodness because she accepted, knowing that it would hurt Will.

There are casualties in every war.

There was silence in the room. All of them feeling the guilt of failure. Jack failing two people and a memory, while Bella and Will only felt failure for one another, for the future that would undoubtedly come back to this moment. This was the silence that only told of a divide, the end and beginning of a new chapter. Jack could only hope that it was not the beginning of the end for the woman before him.

"I won't let you back in the field, not yet," Jack said, breaking the silence. He took in a deep breath, straightening himself. His shoulders squared, his legs locking as he held himself tall. He even took it upon himself to straighten his tie with a few adjusting tugs. He wasn't the kind to linger in weakness. Guilt was a distraction, one that he couldn't allow to consume him until the later hours of the night. There was an abundant of time left to be filled by guilt with his wife's distance. He ignored the coldness that ate away in their marriage just as she ignored how his job did the same. Mutual ignorance. He'd never been more grateful for it.

Clearing his throat, he reached into his pocket, digging out tickets.

He didn't move at first, but eventually his legs began working, and the closer he drew to Bella, the less he saw of Miriam.

He began to wonder if he would need a psychiatrist as well.

"Two tickets to your hometown," he explained. "Price called your family, and by the sounds of it, they were really worried. I figured it would be the perfect opportunity to take a break before jumping back in the saddle," he added with a somewhat proud smile.

She didn't return it.

He saw with clear eyes as the woman's jaw clench. He saw her swallow what he imagined were less than kind emotions rising. It was by the reddening of her cheeks, clear anger rising in her eyes, despite her not daring to vocalize it.

She was the silent kind.

"Thank you, Mr. Crawford."

Not Jack.

Not even those who worked below him called him that. Not his superiors.

It felt cold.

It felt unwelcoming.

It felt like unforgiving.

 _ **The Office of Hannibal Lecter, Baltimore, Maryland**_

She refused to be close to him.

He noticed this from her first visit, and was disappointed to see her continuing her distant nature. It irritated him more to see her flee to the upper part of his office. However, what soothed him was the sight of her standing atop the catwalk, looking down at him. It was the kind of sight that had him wanting to sit down, slowly capturing the moment on paper, memorizing each form with the stroke of a pencil. She looked like the embodiment of romance and sensuality, feeling of loss resonating in her mere image.

She wore a pale blue blouse that fitted her loosely, but accented her figure. He wondered if she wore it for him. It was an elaborate design in contrast to the usual simple cotton shirts he'd knew her to wear. The shirt alone contrasted with the warm coloring of her skin, drawing his attention to the blush on her cheeks as she looked down upon him.

Her face, despite the scars looked nothing short of delicate. Her eyes, downcast with a look of loss and longing, a hand resting against the rich wooden railing while the other was supporting her head, having rested it atop the palm of her hand. From where he was standing, her face was slightly angled away from him, looking lost in her thoughts. Her form contrasted sharply to the strong and hardened shelves behind her, ones that only looked taller and more daunting from where he stood. She looked trapped under them. The mere picture of her held was without sexuality, yet held so much expression of femininity.

With her back to the bookshelves, she looked defiant, effortlessly defiant. A woman who finds pleasure not in power, not provoked by the gluttonous and greed of humanity, but rather in something higher, fascinated with something beyond what could be perceived by the naked eye.

She was beautiful.

He could not tell how he preferred her, when she was looking away from him, beyond him, or at him, seemingly staring into him. The sheer aesthetic of the sight was exceptional, a glimpse at her full potential, potential he wanted nothing more than to help her reach.

"Bella," he said, allowing the two syllables to fall off his lips with grace. Her name tasted like art, like religion. " _Bella._ "

Her brown eyes found him. She blinked, slowly, calmly. Romantic eyes.

"You have not spoken since you arrived," he stated, looking to her expectantly. He knew she was well aware of her silence, yet he still chose to speak as if reminding her, as if she must have forgotten to speak, as if she trusted him to know her without words. There was flattery in that, a charm to her silence. It was the kind of endearment that he was certain wasn't intentional, yet there it was, all the same. "I was under the impression you wished to resume your therapy."

His words were a subtle nudge, a prompting to speak up.

She looked away, as if to contemplate the consequences of speaking, of not speaking.

She was wise enough to comply.

"I am visiting my mother and father soon."

He noticed how she didn't say parents.

"You do not sound pleased," he mentioned, watching her face carefully. "Are you not happy to return to your family?"

He saw her try to hide a pained wince at the word "family."

"I am not happy," she answered with an honest shake of the head. "The last place I ever wanted to go to was the place I grew up in."

She didn't call it "home."

"Most people long to return to their childhood home. They feel closer to their former selves, as if being closer, they might catch an echo of fading memories."

"It's not my home. It stopped being that before I left. The only echos I'll catch aren't memories... Just ghosts."

He would have dared to climb up the ladder, as if a closer proximity would permit him insight to her mind, as if it would allow him to see what was haunting her, what was behind those brown eyes. He would have dared, if only he wasn't wise enough to know that she would sooner fall from the railing than allow herself to be touched. She was too careless with herself, her body. He knew this by the proudly displayed scars on her arms revealed by the blouse. It was less of a show of trust and more of a warning. She wasn't afraid of spilling her own blood. She wasn't afraid of pain. Not even death.

Why that was, he did not know, but he was eager to find out. He loathed working at her pace, at her will. He selfishly wished to speed up the process of trust, if one could even call it such. Both had the other walking on ice, yet he was robbed by her carelessness. Where was his upperhand when she cared not if she drowned or stayed dry? No, he would simply have to bide his time, to watch her until she trusted him with just enough for him to tie strings around those delicate wrists, to pull on them, to teach her.

He was not a believer in god. However, he would reflect the ideals of one.

He wanted nothing more than to shape a man and woman in his image.

He was just waiting to be allowed a chance to shape them.

"Does this reluctance to return home come from a place of hatred? Of anger?" he asked, knowing well that it was not out of love. Whatever it was that chased her to where she was now, home was not a viable option. It was not somewhere safe, somewhere she could rely on. That only left him to question what it was that drove her from it? What was resting there, so deep, so foreboding, that she never looked back once. Not enough for even a single picture according to Will. He knew why he never returned to his past. He knew what it was like to be haunted by a ghost, by a memory. He only wished he knew what hers was.

"No. Maybe. I don't know," she admitted with a sigh. She stood straighter, and step by step she made her way towards the ladder on the far right. He was waiting for her, offering assistance.

She took took his hand.

It was a fleeting touch.

When one foot touched the ground, her hand slipped from his, and she found herself facing him, closer now. He could see anxiousness rise within her, yet she fought against it, defying her very nature by lingering before him.

"When I left, I wasn't planning on returning."

"Why?"

"Because I was scared. I'm still scared."

It wasn't hard to imagine her scared, or frightened. Will was right. She looked like a doe, a frightened and paranoid little creature that was so mindful where she stepped, careful not to make a sound, careful not to draw attention. She was a subliminal beauty, the kind that often went unnoticed, unappreciated. Hannibal held every intention to change that. He saw her. He wanted to understand her. He wanted to change her. And change alone was always frightening. Such big and wide eyes were a welcomed sight, especially now that he was close enough to see how true those eyes spoke on her behalf. There was truly nothing she could hide, he felt, when she was close enough to touch.

She was close enough for him to make out a scent.

She smelled like a walk through a garden, a blend of flowers and herbs, that same natural soft musk that followed Will for the past few weeks.

He never pictured her as the kind to walk among nature, yet now, all he could see was her lying there in a field of flowers under a summer sun, warm and golden rays kissing her skin as she bathed in the beauty of life, untouched by society, untainted by the dirtiness of humanity. This woman was all the benefits of being human without a majority of the drawbacks. Compassionate without hatred, driven, yet without rage. She rough, a diamond waiting to be cut into something _more_.

"What scares you?"

She stood there for a moment, staring at him. There was a redness to her eyes, that pink irritation of tears threatening to form, to fall, yet she didn't allow them to. Not a teardrop in sight, a testimony to how much she wanted to turn her back away, unable to even face her own emotions, much less allow him to bare witness to them. Yet, slowly, her lisp moved, parting at an agonizing pace, a shallow breath leaving her in a sad attempt to speak. By the time she found her words, he'd drawn closer, causing her to close her eyes. She would not be as rude as to take a step back, but she would just as easily be the one to spite him by closing her eyes, cutting him off, refusing to show him anymore.

He was forced to step back, knowing she would not answer until she was safe. _Safer_.

It was a thrilling experience, to have his hand forced.

She was a delicate woman, but not in the sense that she was easily broken. Simply, easily changed. Easily provoked. She was an adaptable creature, one that had the scars to prove it. A survivor. She was the kind of woman who would go far if she only allowed herself to. That is what drove him to wanting to save her from. She held so much potential, and it would be such a waste to allow the likes of Jack Crawford to use her. She'd just begun, and already, her light was almost put out in the name of justice.

That is what she was.

She felt like a discovery. A new journey, a new chance to explore a fascination of his: companionship. This was how Will felt as well. Will was a new possibility, a possible mirror to himself. However, Will was a dangerous catch. His attraction and affection for Will Graham could be a liability. She, on the other hand, wasn't as dangerous. She didn't come with programmed expectations on how she should act, on who she should be. She was like a child in that. She could be guided towards his mindset. Unlike Will, she didn't need a veil over her eyes at first. Only patience.

"I'm afraid of a great many things, Dr. Lecter."

Fear was a natural sensation. However, in the way she used it, he doubted her words. She knew he was not asking for a simple fear. He was asking her to reveal a weakness, a vulnerability. He was asking for her trust, to open herself up just enough for him to see her better. Yet, he didn't want to simply see her. He wanted to reach her, to feel that primitive purity within her, and he wanted nothing more than to pull her into sophistication. He wanted her to find her place of belonging. The only thing stopping her was fear, and it was her silence, her reluctance, that told him this.

She was afraid to see what she was truly capable of.

And he wanted nothing more than to see just exactly what she could do.

"Do you find yourself fearing more or less things?"

"Why would my fear, or amount of fear, change?"

She seemed genuinely curious to know, going so far as to tilt her head to the right as she kept her eyes trained on him.

"Near death experiences alter one's life considerably. I should think it would change your fears."

"Near death experience?" she echoed, her eyes narrowing, a slight upturn of her lips. She didn't look amused. Her eyes did not show the brightness of it. No, her eyes read of tragedy. There was no warmth in it, just a sense of aching. A biting burst of loneliness. Hannibal was not fond of pain. He was not fond of cruelty. However, he was not above using it in pursuit of something better. He would excuse his pressing forward for that.

"Near death experiences are sometimes recognized as part of some transcendental and religious beliefs in an afterlife," he mentioned, watching her expression as he mentioned religion. Her eyes fell to the ground. He did not know if it was of guilt or shame, but there was emotion there. "They also tend to cause oneself to find a greater appreciation for the beauty and excellence in life. They cause a heightened sense of compassion, esteem, and purpose. There is an elevation to those who survive death. There are many who report the feeling of life itself changes, that the brain alters, it becomes more whole in its use."

"Do you believe in that last bit?"

"No."

She said nothing, her eyes moving to look at the clock on the wall, watching as time ticked by. Hannibal doubted she was the one to register with a heightened feeling of life itself. Most survivors often came to appreciate life itself, feeling compelled to seize the day, knowing how precious time was to the shortened lives everyone lived. Yet, she was content. She was at peace, unapologetic as she watched it pass her by. It was undeniably captivating.

Hannibal was not the kind to let something so fine slip from his fingers.

Despite his appetite, he held a kind outlook on life. He understood life's preciousness, appreciating every second. It was the cause of his sophistication. If life was to be so short, he would make the best of it. If he was to drink wine, he'd drink the finest of wines. If he was to don a suit, it would be of an exceptional cut, tailored to him and him alone. There was a profound elevation to his methods of life. Yet, in all that well-tailored perfection, he found himself all alone, with no one to share it with. He supposed that was why he was willing to risk his freedom in pursuit of Will Graham, why he was so willing to touch some profound place of pain in the woman before him in hopes of drawing her closer. There was a time before, before he saw the likes of Will Graham, before he saw that there was a possibility of sharing his mind with another, when he was faced with loneliness, a hopeless resignation to solitude.

But the tides turned, and he had a choice to make.

And he was choosing to take a risk. A decision to step into uncharted waters, a net cast out, hoping that the currents would bring the two of them to him. Then, with both of them secured, both of their lives tied to his, would he allow himself to be carried away.

Perhaps tied was the wrong word.

He didn't want them shackled to him. An unwilling participant wasn't what he wanted.

He wanted to be invited in.

He wanted them to want him to come into their lives.

"There are many cases where people report of having an awareness of death, often followed by peace."

"There wasn't peace, if that's what you're asking," she said quickly, shaking her head. He saw her swallow, as if she were struggling to stomach the memory of it. "I don't remember it. I just remember slipping into it. I remember the moments leading up to dy... to _it_. But that's it. I just remember waking up after that," she explained. "No tunnel, no light... No one waiting for me on the other side, as far as I'm aware of."

There was a haunted look in her eyes that followed her last words. She looked robbed, as if someone had taken her heart from her chest, and she wouldn't be able to rest without it. Before, she looked starved of sleep, but now, closer, he wondered if she lost more. When was the last time she rested easy?

"Some report having a decision, a choice to come back. Others say they had a reluctance to return. Either way, there sounds to be a choice, one that precedes some finding of themselves. Finding their way back to the living."

"If there was a choice, then I didn't have one."

She spoke in a whisper, and her eyes, though staring forward, were far from him, unfocused. She was staring into nothing, a memory, herself. What she was looking at, he did not know. All he knew was the look on her face, this seeping sense of dread crossing her features.

She didn't want to come back.

She must have known he'd realized the truth in her words, for she quickly came back to the present, looking at him sharply, forcing a smile that only spoke of sadness.

"Yet, here I am."

"Here you are."

Hannibal knew better than to report this to Jack.

From his understanding, Jack was worried for her. It was the reason behind his sending Will with her. Though Jack, like Hannibal, was not entirely clear on where the two stood in accordance with one another, Jack was the one to take advantage of it. The man was unceremoniously exploiting their relationship, using it to place Will in a position to watch over her, but not as a friend, as an agent. Jack was wanting Will to be there, not for support, but to be there to watch if she broke, if she faltered.

It was just as Jack was using him to watch over Will.

The only difference was that Hannibal was neither inclined to report Will to Jack as he was to reporting this.

Will had survived more than what he had been put through, what Hannibal planned on putting him through.

Bella had survived more than she let on. Hannibal was willing to swear on this assumption.

She survived before, and she would survive again, if only to force her to adapt, to change into something, someone, greater. It was the way of humanity, gaining power. The power he wanted for her was over herself, and the price of that power would likely be just that: herself.

The difference in the price Jack wished her to pay and the one Hannibal was guiding her towards came in the outcome, the receiving end of the payment.

Jack was willing to watch her cage herself, to set herself aflame in an attempt to make the world a little brighter. Jack, however respectable, did not know the dark. He did not appreciate it. Hannibal did. He wanted her to hone and honor herself, her true self. It was a timeless feat, to want to reveal oneself to the world, to uncover their true abilities, to be liberated.

Hannibal saw this. He could picture it as if it were right there before him. All he would need to do was to convince her that she was following the wrong person, the wrong expectations. He needed to show her that self destruction, martyrdom, was not glorious or righteous. He had to convince her there was beauty in loss, in the discarding of one's inhibitions and the embracing of a side of themself that would otherwise be feared _._

"Why did you allow him to take you? Why did you convince Eldon Stammets to bury you instead of Abigail Hobbs?"

He did not ask "how" she had done it. He was more than aware of the charm she had, specifically on the likes of someone as desperate for a connection. Will was all but attached to her at the thought of losing that connection. Though Hannibal would not admit to being attached to her - If she were to have actually died, he would be disappointed at the loss of an opportunity, but life would go on - He was rather fond of her.

"Seemed like the right thing to do," she answered with a shrug.

It was simple to her.

Abigail Hobbs was younger. She, like Bella, was rough around the edges, skin marred not enough in comparison to what truly was digging into her flesh. She had importance. There were lives surrounding Abigail. Will's, Alana's, even Hannibal's were tied to her, despite not being awake to know this. Who did Bella have? Will?

In terms of family, Bella wasn't sure if Abigail had more. Perhaps the girl had an uncle or aunt, maybe even a grandparent to mourn her. Bella didn't have that. Despite having a living family, there would be no true mourning. They mourned the loss of a daughter long before she was dead. Even if they hadn't, could one even truly mourn the death of a stranger? For that, Bella was willing to trade places. She knew what it was like to lose someone she loved. Abigail might not have even had that, but Bella wasn't willing to risk it. Even if she hadn't anyone, Abigail was young enough to find someone. That, Bella was certain of.

"Death happens. Life can be taken so easily, so cruelly, without our consent. That girl has lost everything. Everything. Everything was taken from her."

"If she has nothing, why take her place?"

"Hope," Bella answered, warmth coming in the form of a smaller smile, yet all the more bright. "I imagine that's why parents go through so much pain. I think they hope for a better future for the sake of their child. They think if they sacrifice enough time, enough effort, enough of themselves, their child just might have a better future. I haven't a child of my own, but I imagine that's what it's like."

"Did you imagine yourself as her parent?" he asked. He knew Will, unwillingly, was finding himself protecting her, a surrogate daughter in his eyes, despite not wanting to admit it. "Is that what filled you with enough courage to face a stranger with a gun? Maternal compulsion?"

She let out a laugh in disbelief, turning away, craning her neck upwards as she did so. He thought he saw a tears forming in her eyes.

"No... No, no no," she said. Her voice was light, unnaturally light. She was trying to hard to seem at ease with that he'd suggested.

He wondered if she had been faced with the thought of having a child. Had someone taken that from her?

"There was no courage."

"None?"

"None," she confirmed as she reached into her bag.

Hannibal's eyes flickered to the clock.

Their session was coming to a close.

Time with her was always fleeting. He never was fully satisfied with their appointments. She always fled before he could get to close. Even though she allowed him a chance to do just that, she still managed to leave him with more questions than answers.

To think, he would be waiting longer to see her again with her return to her home - _her former house_ , he corrected himself with.

As he walked her to the door, he saw her wipe away a tear from the other eye, under the guise of covering her mouth for a yawn, using her middle finger to dexterously hide the slipping of emotion.

However good she was at hiding, she was still a victim to human error.

Just as she reached for the doorknob, he stopped her. Boldly, he placed a hand over her's, causing her to turn sharply towards him, revealing those teary eyes. She realized her mistake, but she did not shy away. She was already too close to him to run.

He chose to invest in this moment.

"I will see to it that Jack will not worry for you upon your return."

He slowly lifted his hand from hers, a sign of faith and trust. One that would warrant her compliance.

 _Quid pro quo._

"Before you leave, do you have any allergies?"

"None," she answered carefully, looking at him with confusion. "Why?"

"I should like for our next session to be discussed over dinner."

* * *

 _ **I'm sorry guys. Honestly, I've written this chapter twice (my internet went out the first time I tried saving), and it just isn't... It isn't what I wanted it to be, so bare with me. I missed another updating deadline, and for that I'm sorry.**_

 _ **I'd like to give a special thanks to AralFox,**_ ** _xxyangxx2006,_** ** _CaptainMc,_** ** _AGCrays,_** ** _Violette Penn,_** ** _isisl, and_** ** _twelia._**

 ** _I know this chapter doesn't match up to the writing of the previous, so, once again, sorry. But I have high hopes for the next chapter, which will be exploring Bella's past through her visit home._**

 ** _I think I might even reach her coming back, which will probably have her and a very much awake Abigail._**

 ** _Anyways, thank you guys so much for reading, so so much for leaving a review because this is my first fanfiction, so your thoughts, opinions, etc give me life... Honestly, I'm still new at this, and I really hope I'm living up to expectations._**

 ** _That being said, thanks again, and please bare with me._**

 ** _... Again, sorry._**


	6. Chapter 6

**All rights to Hannibal (TV) belong to NBC.**

* * *

 _ **Studio 6, Lubbock, Texas**_

She didn't sleep.

The whole flight, she stared out the window. With each passing cloud, she grew more antsy, constantly looking over at him. Every so often, her very breathing would falter. She reddened with each passing second, lips quivering, a panicked look in her eyes that were focused on something so far, he couldn't tell if she were staring into the past or future. The first time it happened, Will became so frightened with the thought that she was suffocating, he impulsively grabbed her wrist, asking if she was okay.

This only resulted in a jolt, followed by that panicked look being directed at him as she snatched her hand away, clutching it close to her chest as if his touch burned her.

Will had never seen her this way. He caught glimpses of her fear, but this? The look in her eyes at the thought of going home was pure terror. It wasn't until hours after initially asking what she was afraid of, hours of silence, that she answered with one word. "Home." It didn't take him long to figure out that it wasn't home she was terrified of. No one was ever afraid of a place, only what a place contained.

What did her hometown contain?

Usually, he wouldn't press her for an answer.

But she wasn't like this enough of the time to provoke pressure.

He asked if she was "hurt."

As soon as he asked, he felt like an idiot and he couldn't tell if he was thankful or hurt by her never answering. A person would have to be deaf, blind, and dead to not see the remnants of pain in her eyes at the mere mention of going back. Yet, he still had to ask. Despite how close he felt they were, she would never voice her pain, fear, not even her pleasure. She was something he had to pay close attention to, to watch for even the faintest flicker of liveliness. So rarely he heard her laugh, her cry, or so much as a puff of breath in disbelief that when it occurred, it felt biblical. It was profound, that the smallest of acts could hold such power over him. He never gave much thought as to what caused her to be like this.

He felt something deep within him rise, like some dark and bubbling feeling came rushing into his heart, flooding into his veins, with the mere thought of it.

Was there a time when she acted so freely that one wouldn't have to piece her together to even catch a glimpse into what she might be feeling or thinking? If so, what happened to make her so quiet?

Who silenced her?

Even as they waited for the key to their room, she was still frightened. She stood by the front doors, engrossed in something she was reading on her phone, an excuse to keep her head down. Despite the weather, which was about twenty degrees hotter, she still wore two layers of jackets, the innermost having a hood that was pulled over her head. Every so often, she would look up fro her phone, eyes sweeping across the lobby, to him. There was a coldness in her eyes. When she took a breath, her nostrils would flare, face twitching as if to fight off her frown. It was as if she were swinging back and forth from burning with rage or drowning in fear. Sometimes both.

When giving directions, her voice shook slightly, yet, when he tried to talk to her, to get her to confide in him, she would snap at him, only to apologize shortly afterwards.

He felt exhausted.

It seemed that every time he attempted to help her, he only made things worse.

"Your keys."

Will blinked, startled by the voice. When he looked, he instantly regretted being easily provoked, especially at the sights of a skeptical looking elderly woman.

"You okay?" She asked, still holding out the key card.

Will nodded quickly, taking it from her before giving a weak wave as he hurried off towards Bella.

He opened his mouth to call her name, but she was already at the door, waiting for him.

Their room was something akin to a small house. It was bigger than her apartment, nicer than her apartment. It was even cozier than her apartment where the only decoration she had was a broken room divider. Unlike that apartment, there was warmth in their room. White walls for the most part, a few of them were red, matching the furniture that either sported a red fabric or oak wood. At the entrance, there was a small living room area, a kitchen to the left of it. On the kitchen side, there was a door to a closet, to the right of that closet was stairs, and beside those stairs was a pair of double doors, opened, revealing a room with a single bed.

For a moment, he thought there was a mistake in their given room until Bella passed him by upstairs. He followed her, not completely sure why until he reached the top of the stairs. To his left was a bathroom, to his right, was an area with another bed. She didn't acknowledge him. He knew better than to think she hadn't heard him follow her. Either she didn't care that he did, or she wasn't up for asking why. Ever since Jack placed those tickets in her hands, she quieted down, even more than she already was. Even as she unpacked, she did so quietly, methodically, only stopping to look at him after she realized he wasn't leaving.

He could see it, the question resting on her parted lips.

She didn't ask.

She could see his own questions rising in his eyes. She could see he didn't understand. He didn't understand what she had seen, what she had done, how wrong she had been. He couldn't see into her past. An acute sense of empathy didn't imply that he would be able to do that, to peer into her eyes and into her mind. He could only see the present. No one could sift through her own memories, pulling them before her eyes, forcing her to relive it all. Not even she could control that. If she could manage her memories, she would have pulled them out of their files and burned them all. At least then she would be able to function better than she was now.

Now, she felt like she was faulty, like some broken system that was still desperately trying to run.

In the end, in a light and airy voice from having smothered all his concern, he told her he was going to call Jack. And in a tight voice, not even the slightest bit of contentment, she asked if he would give Jack a "thank you." When the call came to pass, he gave it to Jack. Neither of them were convinced of her sincerity, and they were right not to. The silence was killing him, slowly. By the time he told her good night - He was almost a sleep by the time she came out of an agonizingly long shower - he was exasperated, feeling despicable for even raising his voice to be heard from downstairs.

That night, Will stared at the ceiling, waiting for that drowsy feeling to return as he contemplated how they came to be here.

He hated being so far from home.

She did too.

Both fell asleep with a longing to return to that cozy white house in Wolf Trap.

 _ **The Diaz Residence, Lubbock, Texas**_

It's only five days.

 _Five more days._

She furiously tugged at her long sleeves as she walked down the red brick pathway to the front door of a well kept Spanish revival. She could hear the sound of music playing from the opposite side of a thick wooden door. She didn't recognize the words to whatever song was playing, but she didn't need to. She knew Tejano music like a child remembered the voice of its mother. Against all efforts, she could still hear her mother's voice. It almost warded her away from the very door she stood before.

She didn't ring the doorbell at first.

Instead she stared at it. The white plaster walls, the red clay tiles on the roof, even the smell of it hadn't changed. For a moment, she couldn't tell if she were in a memory or reality. She could taste that almost paralyzing paranoia of her adolescence fill her. It took all the strength she had in her to even attempt knocking on the heavy wooden door. The second her hand reached for the iron knocker, the door swung open, and she was faced with eyes as dark as the night sky, yet, still, after all these years, impossibly shallow.

The woman who those eyes belong to was older than she remembered. There were more wrinkles on her face, her cheeks sagged some, but framing her thin lips were those familiar scream lines. Still, they were more prominent, if only by a little. What hadn't changed was the color of her lips, still red, red like the wine she indulged herself with on a nightly basis. She still stood proudly, despite her shortness. Before she had left, Bella and her were at the same height. She had a good two to three inches now. Not much, but just enough to feel a little less intimidated. Before she had left, the woman wore a modest cross on her neck.

The cross she wore now was bigger, now covered in diamonds.

Not having to cover expenses for her children did her bank account wonders, Bella figured.

The woman's thin lips curled upwards, flashing a toothy grin, her brown eyes slowly lighting up with recognition.

The woman moved to hug her.

Will saw how her head turned frantically, searching for him as she was pulled against her will into the older woman. He saw her squirming, and how the woman only held onto her tighter until Bella choked out a " _please_ ". The woman wasn't hurting her. Will knew better than anyone that Bellamy was more than capable of enduring pain without breaking, but with each second, more cracks were forming.

And all he could do was watch.

"Well, come on in!" the woman said, finally letting her go. Bella didn't move an inch, eyes flickering from the woman to the door, silently telling her, "You first." Will gave her the luxury of following the woman first, giving her a physical barrier between someone she so clearly mistrusted. This was the unspoken trust between them, a willingness to protect one another without so much as a question.

As he walked in, he took note of the cold temperature of the house. Despite its appearance, there was hardly any warmth. What there was, however, was an excessive amount of crosses. On every wall of the house, there seemed to be one. Following down the hall, to his left, into a room filled with people, he even noticed what appeared to be a shrine. A picture of the pope was in the center, intended to be lit by candles with the Holy Mary on the fronts. None were actually lit. They didn't look as if they were ever lit, not that it concerned him. What concerned him was the pictures. There they were. Family pictures, old and new. The older ones caught his eyes, especially the ones with a young girl with sad brown eyes with an even sadder smile.

She couldn't have been more than three.

It was a cute picture. She was a small child, something emphasized by a pair of overly large glasses, and baggy overalls that were clean despite what was clearly scraped knees. She was smiling in the picture. A big, bright, unapologetic smile. She looked undeniably happy, her nose was even slightly crinkled, flashing pearly whites at the camera. He could almost hear the sound of a child's laugh. One of her hands was raised towards the camera, fingers spread as if she were waving or trying to reach for the person behind the camera. On two of her fingers, there were pink band-aids. The other hand was raised, almost straight out if it weren't for a slight bend. That hand formed a fist. She looked _so_ excited.

She looked alive.

He hadn't realized he'd been staring at it until he felt warmth on his right arm.

When he turned his head, he saw her.

"Who was behind the camera?" He heard himself ask.

"My brother."

She sounded far away, as if she were lost in a dream. If he could, he would have preserved this memory of her. It was almost happy.

Unfortunately, the dream died at the sound of the woman speaking.

"We threw a welcome home party yesterday-" She spoke in a condescending tone. "-since that's when you were supposed to arrive." Her words were sharpening with less than subtle accusation in them.

Bella didn't seem to notice. In fact, she kept her eyes everywhere except the woman. Will had to keep glancing at her as they turned the corner, thinking she might be so preoccupied with keeping her focus elsewhere that she might not even mind wandering into the wrong room. He opened his mouth, and, as if she could sense him about to speak, she looked at him, a reassuring expression on her face, if only for a split second before the woman spoke again.

"I made a list of everyone to call so you can apologize to them."

This earned more of a reaction from Will than Bella.

He had barely even seen this woman, and despite the happy smile on her face, there was hostility in her voice, hidden under all her welcoming courtesies. When he looked at Bella, he wondered if she'd heard a single word the woman had said.

She was well adept at falling deaf to the woman's words. Will could only assume it came from years of practice.

The woman stopped as they entered what he could only assume was the dining room and kitchen, a counter separating the two.

The room was lit in warm lighting, causing the light brown walls to look caramel. There was a decently sized table for six people if it weren't pushed against the outer wall, just below a window. There were only five chairs, one which was clearly broken and another Will wouldn't recommend sitting on in risk of breaking. The table itself was a peculiar piece. It had a red gingham tablecloth, a plastic cover over it and green placemats. Under the plastic cover, he could make out dingy white placemats. On the walls, there were metal wall decorations that said things like "Give Thanks", "Love One Another", "Bless This Home And All Who Enter", and "With God All Things Are Possible". No pictures, just those metal decorations, two depictions of the last supper, and another cross, hung right above the window.

It was hard to imagine that this was the house Bella grew up in. There were so many decorations. Even the tiled floors were set in a pattern akin to the kind found in churches.

Will wondered if this was the reason why she lived so simply, with barely the necessities for living. He wondered if something happened to make her so repulsed from somewhere like this. He disregarded this notion. It wasn't the presence of the decorations. His own house was decently decorated. Yes, most of it was unmatched and not as thatrical as this place. The majority of it showed a cluttered nature, but he never had anyone to witness his living. His only company was the dogs.

Still, she loved it there.

 _Well_ , he liked to think she liked it there. She'd almost become a part of it with how often she came over - not that he minded how often that was.

It was her home if she wanted it.

He would not admit it, but he wanted her to want it.

Once Will was done with looking at the dining area, it was then he noticed an elderly woman sitting there.

This woman could be no younger than mid-seventies with grey hair that was pulled back so tight as to pull back some of her loose and wrinkled skin. She was hunched over, making a fine blouse wrinkle. Will took note of how nice she dressed. She looked as if she were on her way to church, as did the woman who answered the door. Will almost believe he lost time again until he checked his phone. Sure enough, it was Tuesday.

"Whose this?" The elderly woman croaked, staring at Will with merciless eyes.

" _Grandmother._ "

Will's eyes snapped towards Bella, who, up until this moment, made certain to look otherwise busy admiring the floors. She was standing straighter, stronger than before. Her lips were pressed together, jaw clenched as soon as she closed her mouth. His eyes flickered to her feet. He recognized the positioning from his early days, when he was training to become a cop. It was one often seen in self defense.

The woman bristled at the word, her eyes switching over to Bella, her granddaughter, with a profound amount of anger.

"Grandmother?" she scoffed, rolling her eyes.

" _Dolores_ ," Bella grounded out. Will had never seen her like this. He'd seen this look on the likes of Alana Bloom, Jack Crawford, even himself. It was a bubbling kind of rage, the kind that was deeply rooted in one's heart.

"You've forgotten your manners, child," the woman, 'Dolores', huffed. Her eyes ran up and down Bella's form, silently criticizing her. Her nose wrinkled as if she were disgusted with the sight of her granddaughter. "You've also forgotten how to dress. Even someone like you ought find something better to wear."

Will's eyes narrowed at the words "like you", but Bella's didn't. She wasn't bothered by this. Not anymore than she was bothered by the mere presence of her grandmother.

"Enough, mama," the woman, who Will could only assume to be Bella's mother, hushed. She looked tired, irritated, but as soon as she saw Will's looking at her, she threw on a smile. "Not in front of guests," she added with a proud grin.

Will did not smile.

So she would have allowed 'Dolores' to continue, had he not been present? Yes, he could see why Bella would have preferred to stay away from her family. She wouldn't be alone in her distance. There was something so foreign about family. He was as ill-fitted for it as any of the suits he owned. Needless to say, he could relate to a lack of connection to the blood that bound most to some sort of familial obligation, the very kind he would suspect her family of attempting to keep her in line with.

"You going to introduce us to this man?" her mother asked, pointing to Will with a whisk in hand. She had moved to being behind the counter, resuming some sort of baking.

As irritated as he was growing, Will's face softened for a moment before matching to the same spark of curiosity that her mother showed.

He was curious himself as to how to define where exactly the two of them stood. He always changed the subject whenever asked, something Jack was polite enough not to push.

He knew himself.

He knew that when he looked at the woman before him, he found himself growing more and more attracted to her. There were times when he could have sworn that she reflected this. It was in the times when he would look up from making a lure, and he would catch her, smiling and whispering to the dogs. And he would _see_ her. There were times when she truly came alive. Not like the young girl in the picture. He doubted that she could ever return to that state of happiness. But, his eyes weren't wrong. There was something undefinable behind her eyes. Something deeper than friendship. Something _more_.

Bella's eyes flickered between her mother, grandmother, and Will, as if they were asking too much of her, as if they were digging their claws into something intimate, something meant for only herself and him to know. A minute ticked by until she answered.

"This is Will."

She was doing the same thing that she'd done to him. Offering only a first name, a common name, something unidentifiable.

Her grandmother, however, was having none of it.

"Well, who is he to _you_?"

There was something in the way that her grandmother referred to her. She sounded as though she were referring to something offensive, something so wrong that it should be pitied. Something to be ashamed of. Will held no doubt that the foul woman before them despised the very blood shared between them. She shifted in her seat, away from them, towards the wall as if to avoid something of disgust.

"Who am I to you?" Bella asked in a pressed voice.

"A thorn in my side," Dolores answered, wrinkling her nose. She might have bared her teeth if Will weren't present. "You are incorrigible. A stain on this family," her grandmother spat. Will cautiously glanced at Bella, only to see her, eyes closed, drawing circles over her temples, trying to soothe a throbbing headache.

Her family wasn't the reason behind her leaving. She knew this. Yet, escaping them was something she couldn't find it in herself to regret. She couldn't recall doing anything to deserve this. Her running away wasn't behind this kind of hatred, this kind of vindictive behavior. The longer she tried remembering what it was that she had done, where exactly she went wrong, that warranted a change from love to hatred, the more she was sure that memories of kindness were false.

Will, watching, felt an impulse to step in, to point out that what Dolores saw as a "stain" was the woman behind saving an innocent life. Yet, after seeing Bella's eyes open, a tired, yet defiant burning in her eyes, he knew that it was not his place to speak. Besides, it was not as though anything he could say would make things better. He concluded that anything anyone had to say wasn't enough for this woman.

"Don't rub your head like that! You should be happy that we didn't turn our back on you," Dolores hissed, giving a shake of the head. "Many told us that after the stunt you pulled, dropping out of college, runnin' around like damn idiot, we should have turned our backs. Yes, they did!" Dolores said with a sure nod. "But _no,_ " she sneered, glaring at her daughter. "Your mother refused. She said you would come to see how wrong you are, that you would eventually come to your senses."

"Mama-"

"Don't interrupt me!" Dolores hissed.

Bella's mother quickly shut her mouth, returning to her mixing.

"'Can't turn your back on family,' she said," Dolores quoted in a mocking tone. "Well. Have you finally found your decency?"

Will could almost see the anger boiling within Bella as she stared at her grandmother, years of memories, memories that she tried to bury, come rising to the surface.

"I didn't ask you to... to..."

She was shaking. When he looked down at her hands, he found them curled into fists, knuckles white. It was becoming more and more apparent that this visit was a mistake. He opened his mouth to speak, to try to come up with an excuse to shuffle her away from this place, but her grandmother wasn't done with her. Not nearly done with her.

"Of course, you don't! You don't even have the intelligence to grasp how lucky you are to have such a forgiving family. You ought take this chance while you can and try to do better. _He_ would have done better. Heaven knows that he would have done better! I-"

" _Don't_."

The way she said it silenced them. There was something hard in her voice, hardened like it took everything in her entire body to break down the word, to push it from her lungs with one dying breath. There was a graveness to it. One word. One warning. One _threat_.

It was enough to silence the old woman.

Will's eyes widened as he stared at Bellamy.

She was standing tall, an unyielding rage burning in her eyes. He could almost feel anger radiating from her as she glared, enraged, at her grandmother. Violent wrath pulsed through her as she abruptly turned on her feet. It wasn't until they passed the threshold into the dining room that he realized she was pulling him by the hand, her own wrapped tightly around his with an unprecedented strength.

"Wait!" he heard her mother call from behind, followed by the sound of footsteps.

He could hear her begin again, this time in Spanish. He couldn't understand her words, but he could so clearly hear the intent in her voice as if there were some sense of reason she could appeal to within her daughter.

Perhaps, once there was.

Not anymore.

"I said that's enough."

Will never heard Bellamy raise before, and he didn't now. Yet, by the loud silence of her mother stopping, he would have imagined she had. Bellamy hadn't though. She continued walking, with long and powerful strides. It was as though she were on a war path. Will never found himself fitting anywhere in the fabric of society or life in general. Now, he felt swept up in a tide that wasn't his.

He felt as though he were watching something he shouldn't.

He felt shamed.

Bella's mother called out to her again.

She didn't turn her head.

As fluid as she was, Bella had a way about carrying herself, even in her most quieted echo of self. She had principles. Not many, but those she did, she stuck to. Never did he see her engage. Never did he see her fight. And, on some level, he understood her mentality. When it came to anger, acting on it, placing yourself in the opposition could risk harming oneself much more quickly than one would harm their adversary. Yet, the look in her eyes, he wondered if there was more too it. Looking into her eyes was like looking into the eyes of a stranger. They were endless, but not like looking into the night sky. It was like staring into the dark of the ocean, unable to find one's way back to the surface. He wondered if acting on her anger would be akin to swimming in the depths of the ocean, risking getting lost. Acting on her anger would change her. Consume her. Transform her into something beyond human, something primal, raw, uncontrolled like a beast.

It was the first time he feared not her, but what she could do.

She stepped through the front door, ignoring her mother calling after her. Will was both fearing her leaving and fearing her turning around. This was not the same woman as before. This was not the soft and delicate woman that allowed herself to be buried. This was a woman with undefined limitations, unknowing of what she herself was capable of. In truth, she was just as afraid as he was.

Before they reached the car - before _she_ reached the car, he stepped in front of her, looking down at her with worried, blue eyes. If he was not so close, so familiar with her height, he would have been surprised to find himself looking down at her, of having the reminder that he was bigger, stronger - at least, he was under the impression of being stronger - than the woman that was almost too enraged to even notice his stepping in front of her. She nearly ran into him, only half a foot away from touching him, closer than they'd ever been before, and when she looked up, almost offended at the sudden intrusion on her path, it took her a moment to recognize him.

 _Blue eyes._

There was something absolutely natural in the way his eyes affected her. There was something disarming about the way he looked at her. There was no words needed, no movements needed, all it took was one look, one understanding and understood look shared between them, and all of the anger flooded from her, a wave of tranquility washing over her like the almost blessed rains that washed over this god forsaken city.

She could recognize his touch despite rarely feeling it.

She could recognize the smell of him better than she could any "home".

She could pick out his voice in a room full of people.

But, most of all, she could find his eyes because of their color, clear as honest and genuine as he was.

She relaxed visibly the longer she was under his gaze, under some unseen cloak of protection he placed over her the second her heart began beating again. Seeing her visible relief, Will attempted to salvage this trip that was ruined in a matter of minutes. In a calm and quiet voice, he whispered, "Do you want to leave now?" Did she want to leave her family with an encounter like this?

"Yes," she answered surely.

She needn't say anymore.

This was an unspoken promise between them.

When she accepted the job with the FBI, he swore that if she wanted out of a situation, he'd do it with only one word of confirmation. Though this was not a case, not on the clock, he would do it all the same.

So, they left without so much as a look back.

 _ **Studio 6, Lubbock, Texas**_

By the time he gathered enough courage to walk upstairs to where she had been hiding for several hours, it was already late into the night. He could barely see the carpet covered steps. His feet sank with each step onto the woven fabric. It was soft, worn in. It almost felt like one of the blankets he had back at home. With each step, he felt more at ease, his eyes eventually beginning to wander over the upper room.

None of her things were out. All the clothes tucked away in drawers or in the closet. Even her suitcase was gone. There was no evidence of someone even being up there, not even the bedding was disrupted from even the slightest weight. He almost began to think she'd snuck out - did it count as sneaking out if both of them were free to leave? They held no true obligations to one another - without him noticing. It wasn't until he spotted just a sliver of hair from the opposite side of the bed that his growing anxiety dissipated.

He quietly made his way around the bed, trying his best to go unnoticed, not wanting to disturb what felt like the closest thing to a safe place to her. As much as he tried, when she slowly came into view, he found her staring at him, dark eyes staring straight into him.

The cold air from the air conditioner was ruffling up her brown hair, sending a few strands upwards. As she looked up at him with that same solemn expression, Will was almost certain that he could see the faintest bit of comfort in her eyes. His first impression of her was thinking her to be a solitary creature, yet in times like this, he was almost willing to bet that he was wrong. That she, like him, was solitary by choice, but not by desire.

He couldn't tell if it was how long he was staring or the cold air that made her adjust the blanket around her.

 _Where did she_ -

He squinted his eyes, and it became apparent that it wasn't a blanket, but a towel thrown over her shoulders.

He looked her over again.

Her hair was still damp, and her bottom lip gave the slightest quiver.

"Are you cold?" he asked as he pointed to the bed, as if she were unaware of its presence.

She nodded and Will instantly moved to pull off the thick comforter, but as soon as his fingers dug into the soft cotton, he felt cold fingers wrap around his wrist. His eyes moved back to her. She simply shook her head as if speaking to a child that didn't know any better. Her hand lingered there. He didn't mind. Her touch was one of the few comforting ones despite being the one he's felt the least.

As if she could sense him beginning to enjoy the feeling, she withdrew her hand, adjusting her towel before she settled down with her back against the side of the bed. Will didn't know if she wanted him to leave or go. All he knew was that he didn't. Sinking down beside her, he tried to get close, not enough to touch, but enough to feel her faint body heat.

He struggled to find the words. He opened his mouth, but nothing came out.

But she saw him.

A sigh left her lips and she reached over her head, grasping onto the bedding. With a quiet grunt, she pulled until the blanket fell over their shoulders. Then, she moved her arm over him. He went rigid, trying to stay as still as can be as she made sure her was covered. She was cloaking him in warmth. Not with the blanket. With her presence more. With her so close, it was almost as if the cool air was nonexistent. Had it not been so dark as to be unable to make out colors well, she would have seen his cheeks redden.

When she was satisfied, she looked him in the eyes, a gentle smile on her face.

"Better," she whispered.

Nodding, he echoed, "Better."

Despite her not having asked a question, she seemed pleased with his answer, this time leaning against him.

Will didn't know much. His whole job, his thought to be purpose was to know the evidence, to interpret it, and to know more. But now? Now, he knew nothing. Yet, he was content with that, pleased with this small and safe place, under a blanket, looking out a window into nothing with her leaning against him.

 _With her._

She turned her head towards him, scrutinizing his face, eyes flickering to different parts of it, looking for any indication of - well, what exactly she was looking for, he did not know. He remained still, and eventually, she settled on his eyes again. She nodded slowly. He heard her mutter something so quiet that he couldn't hear despite how close they were. He felt her tense. Then relax. He could feel the internal conflict rising within her, and he knew nothing about how to help her through it.

"What happened?" he heard himself ask. The question forced its way through his lips, something almost entirely against his better judgement, yet he couldn't deny that he, to some degree, wanted to know.

What was it that had divided her family? What was it that had her so eager to leave? The entire drive back to the hotel after they left, she looked... _traumatized_. Her eyes were far away. She was constantly switching between avoiding his eyes to looking to him with a terrified expression as if no one but him could help him. At the same time, he felt as though anyone except for him could do just that. And when he couldn't help her, when he had no words to speak, no comfort to give, when she turned her eyes away, he was flooded with guilt.

Why was she like this?

She was looking at him with wide eyes.

She knew he had a right to their rule, one couldn't get close to another without... _talking_. Her nose crinkled slightly at the thought of telling him. But, it wasn't just a thought now. She hadn't thought about it at all, what she was going to say, what she was going to do. What did she think was going to happen by staying? It all seemed foolish, the more she thought about it. What? Did she think that she'd be able to build a life with him, to build one together without so much as talking about what they were as individuals? She would have to tell him. She didn't want to tell him, and, at the same time, she did. Taking another breath, she tried to relax.

It should have been impossibly easy to tell him. With the way he was looking at her, expecting nothing in return, she should have been able to pour her heart out if she hadn't buried it so far to where she even questioned if she had one to empty.

This was what it felt like to be alone with Will. Heavy, yet weightless. Feeling both inadequate and content. The way he regarded her, seeing her scarred face and haphazard living, as though it were enough - Could _she_ be enough? She wasn't ever the kind of person who was good enough for anyone. It's why she was alone. Her only experience with anything close to a relationship was more like mutual destruction than a functioning and healthy relationship. What made matters worse was that it was nobody's fault but her own. She didn't have the luxury of leaving the only romantic relationship she ever had with the dignity of having put everything in her heart into the relationship. She didn't have a full heart to give at the time. Now? Oh, she felt broken. Before she came back to the place of her past, she was just beginning to feel as though she were finally being put together again, as though she were finally ready to move on. And here she was, feeling just as broken as before.

She wasn't enough then. Could she be enough now?

Bella's heart began to ache as memories of her last love came to the surface, but she quickly put them away. It wasn't right to act as though her relationship to Will Graham was the same as her relationship to Alejandra Alvarez. The more she thought on them, the only two people she dared to fall in love with, the more it became apparent on why she was so unsuccessful in the past, yet it gave her hope, hope that this time things could be different. She could be different. She was different.

With Alejandra, Bella had been so _gone_. She was stuck, torn in between the person she was and the person she was trying to be. Bella was so focused on trying to be whole, trying to be just as happy, just as excited, just as _alive_ as Alejandra, and Alejandra was as alive as the sun itself, never resting until it was for good. Even as she laid beside Bella at night, in her sleep she would be active, muttering incoherently, the occasional toss or turn. She was so bright, so rich in color, but Bella was nothing if not washed away, fading. She did all the right things. She remembered every birthday and holiday, always taking her sweet and loving girlfriend out to dance. She gave her flowers. She gave her gifts. She gave her time. Yet, it wasn't enough because she couldn't give her girlfriend herself. Bella couldn't tell her because she saw Alejandra, a pure embodiment of everything good in life, and she couldn't see herself beside her. She wasn't worthy. She wasn't _enough_.

But, with Will, she finally felt as though she were herself. She never lied to him. She never dolled herself up, trying to imitate women like Alana Bloom or Beverly Katz, strong women that had a good head on their shoulders. Women that were strong, respectable. They put all they had into helping others, helping make the world a better place. Bella, more often than not, had to put all she had into getting up in the mornings, continuing to trudge through life. This was easier when Will came, when she found out that she wasn't so alone. He wasn't a rock to keep her grounded during a storm, but a man pulling her into a lifeboat. Both of them lost, both of them floating along in uncharted waters, but they had each other.

That's why she couldn't leave, she realized. That was why she was considering doing what she had never before done with anyone.

He was her Scarecrow.

She couldn't leave because she would miss him most of all.

She had to do it.

She had to tell him.

"Okay," she said, gathering her courage.

All the while, Will was staring.

He had been watching the whole time, seeing her, slowly, but surely, relax. There was a tension in her shoulders that was lost, a guarding look slowly dissipate. It felt as though he were beginning to see the true Bellamy. She was going to allow him into her thoughts, her desires, all things invisible. Yet, he was going to see it. A warmth erupted on her face despite the sadness in it. She was radiating a stronger sense of peace, that same peace that he caught a glimpse of when they first met. Like a survivor finally putting an end to what they had to survive.

"It wasn't always like this," she began. "I mean, it was, but, at the same time, it wasn't."

She began shifting in her place.

Feeling that habitual sense of guarding walls rising, having to fight against them, to leave herself open. Will could see this. He could see that with even just the fewest words, she was beginning to feel discomfort. And so, he did what he had only ever seen other people do. He slowly, gently, _cautiously_ , placed an arm over her shoulder. And, to his surprise, she melted into the slight embrace, her arms slipping around his waist. He moved his other hand, placing it onto her head, and began to run his fingers through her hair. It was a comforting movement, one that had her closing her eyes, subtly leaning into his touch. It felt entirely natural, as though they had ended their days like this all the time. Will almost forgot she was in the middle of explaining.

"I like your hair," he heard himself say. His cheeks were burning for a moment, only to feel his nervousness being quelled by her humming contently in response.

"So did _he_."

She lifted her head, looking at him for just a moment, as though wondering if Will were still himself. Will's face twitched, feeling just a pinch of jealousy at the thought of someone else, another man having done exactly as he had, been her resting place. He put his jealousy away as soon as he recognized the flash of pain in her eyes, the glimpse of hidden grief behind the browns he found himself constantly searching for. It didn't matter who came before him.

It's not as though she was his. He had to remind himself of that. As she rested her head against him once more, he felt that same warmth fluttering within his chest, one that made him lightheaded as if it were flooding his lungs, coming through his lips with every breath. It was hard to imagine a time when things were different. That was the strange thing about being near Bellamy Bennet. She managed to fall so easily into his life that it felt as though she were always there. Being with her felt like something akin to coming home.

Still, he was careful when he continued to run his hand through her hair, just as she was careful when she tightened her hold around him. The way they acted, so terrified of making a mistake, read of a familiarity with rejection, tasting of the same bitterness of being outcast, set aside from everyone else. Both of them just as scared, unsure, with just enough courage to continue.

Their maladjusted nature was what brought them together.

"What was your family like?" she asked quietly.

She could feel Will shift a didn't need to see his face to know there was a ghost of a grimace upon it.

"I never knew my mother," he admitted. His answer was met with silence. "I didn't have any siblings. It was just my father and I."

She waited some time in silence before she realized that was his answer. Frowning, she twisted her body, catching a glance of a blank expression. Quickly, she adjusted herself, moving to lie on her back, her head on his lap, now having a clear view of his face as if to see him, who he was, how he felt, better.

"You didn't answer my question," she pointed out in a soft voice. "Were you close? Did you get along?"

Will only shook his head, looking up rather than down with shame and regret, wanting to avoid looking at her. She would not have it though. Reaching her right hand upwards, she placed her hand on his cheek, demanding his attention.

"We weren't close," he answered stiffly, trying to swallow the memories rising in him like bile. "My father wasn't good with... expressing affection," he grounded out, trying to find the right words. "Guess I got this detached feeling from a nuclear and normal family from him."

It was supposed to be a joke, but neither of them were laughing.

"We moved around a lot."

Will refused to mention their money troubles.

"One would think that travelling would give me ample opportunities to make friends, to make a family of my own."

"It doesn't," she finished for him, an echo in the way she said it made him wonder if she did her fair share of travels.

"Did your family move around a lot?"

His question earned a scoff in disbelief.

"God, no!" she laughed bitterly with a faint shake of the head. "My family didn't... They didn't... I..." She shut her mouth after some attempts. She let out a frustrated sigh, taking some time to gather herself before beginning again. "My family was everything and nothing at the same time."

Will only raised a brow before she began explaining.

"It's like... Imagine the world to you right now," she began. "Imagine all the complexities of life, knowing them, knowing that there's a bigger picture. I was a... a difficult child," she settled on, cringing at the word. It wasn't right. It didn't fit, but she hadn't another way to describe herself. "I didn't know how to _care_ about the things they did."

She could already feel a headache approaching with just the memories.

"It was... It was frustrating," she sighed, trying to fight off the rising anger.

This was why she hated coming home. She always managed to revert back into that same little girl she always hated being.

"Their lives were too mundane, too domestic. They just didn't - They just _couldn't_ understand anything beyond their little bubble of living. They were either neglecting or overbearing." The words couldn't stop flowing out of her mouth. All that bottled up anger was bubbling to the surface. "They were so concerned with looking like the perfect family instead of becoming one."

She could feel herself growing angrier and angrier. She tried to contain it, just as she always had, digging her nails into the palms of her hands.

Will's eyes spotted her shaking fists. This was not what he wanted. Yes, he wanted her to open up, to trust him with what was eating her alive, but not at the cost of more pain.

"You said you had a brother," he pointed out, remembering the fondness in her eyes, the one smile she gave while inside her parents' house. Just as quickly as she had gotten angry, that anger vanished. It was like watching a spell break over her. She let her fists unravel. He caught sight of dark spots on the palms of her hands. She'd dug into them too deeply. He made a note to clean them before she went to bed.

Just like before a sad smile came over her.

"Tell me about him," he prompted.

Bella bit the inside of her lip as her eyes found his once more.

She already told him some. Not all of it, but some of it. It was more than she ever told anyone else, and it felt _good_. The rest wouldn't. She knew that well enough. But she came this far with telling him. So she could trust him with more. She told herself that she had nothing to fear, that she hadn't done anything wrong. She only wished that she actually believed in what she told herself.

"His name was Edward," she began with a smile on her face. Saying his name was like saying a blessing. "I never got to meet our actual father. We hardly know anything about him except that he worked a lot and that his father, or maybe his father's father, loved science fiction, specifically Edward Bellamy's _Looking Backward_. Apparently he loved the idea of a better future, one built on unity or something."

She shook her head. Her eyes were narrowed, as if trying to recall something from a distant memory. Will imagined that she must have worn it often. He remembers the times when he would try to think of his mother, trying to piece together the scraps she left behind as if he would someday have a clear view of her.

He wonders how long Bella tormented herself with hypotheticals, wondering who her father was, what he could have been, what he might actually be. An absent parent alone could leave a lasting impact. With the kind of parent she was left behind with, a mother like the kind he saw, he could imagine that Bella's upbringing alone was more than straining.

"He was four years older than me, but he was so small for the first few years of his life," she said with a hopeless laugh. "He was the first person to ever love me."

Will didn't point out the presence of her mother. He knew that a mother's love wasn't a luxury all children had.

"Our mother married another man after our father left - he left before I was even born - and despite moving up in the social-economic class system, our mother still insisted on working. Our step father worked out of town for five days out of the week. Mom worked late shifts. Despite being miles away, our step father was strict. We weren't allowed outside without mom there, but mom had to be outside with us, and considering that she worked late, we never had the chance to."

Will quickly understood the closeness that she had with her brother. In the neighborhood that she grew up in, he would have assumed that she wouldn't have a shortage of children to play with, friends to make. However, being trapped inside her house, with no company but her brother, he could see how she would latch onto her only company.

"Technically, there was nothing particularly wrong with our childhood. Not at first."

Her smile faded into that same tragic smile, the weary upturn of lips that read more of pain than of happiness. He could see her visibly swallow, taking in a shuddering breath as her hands began to curl into fists once more. He didn't stop her. He didn't want to interrupt whatever she was feeling. He had a strong feeling that if he did, she wouldn't finish, and he needed her to finish telling him. She needed to finish telling him.

"I don't remember it, but I remember my god mother telling me that when I was starting school, Eddie would get in trouble for asking to go to the bathroom and then walk to my classroom just to see if I was okay... He was... He... He..."

There was tears streaming down her face.

"Anyways, he was there. Every time I was happy or upset or angry, he was there. And it couldn't have been easy since I was so sensitive," she said with a bitter laugh, wiping the tears from her eyes. "But that's just who he was to me. He was so good sports, making friends, even academics once he realized how good at math he was," she added with a quiet and nostalgic laugh. "He was this perfect son, perfect brother."

Will could see the pain in her eyes, and he could do nothing about it. Nothing that could truly heal her from whatever scars she had over her heart. What he could do, he did. And so, he lifted his hand again, and placed it over her two. He hadn't expected her to move her own, to unlace her fingers and latch onto his, but she had. He was offering what little strength he could, and she accepted it.

"He should have resented me. He should have hated me." She tried to swallow the guilt she carried. "But he didn't. He had too good of a heart. Everyone with eyes could see it. There was no room in his heart for anything bad, I think. Even those who were cruel to him, he met them with kindness. He met me with kindness, with love. Back then, everything was perfect.

"I can remember the briefest moments of relief when he would hold me tight, when he would sing to me 'Over the Rainbow/What a Wonderful World', and in those moments, nothing and no one could touch me."

She could almost hear his voice, even after all this time.

"What I would give to hear his voice again."

Will wanted to ask if she sung, if she would sing for him, but he knew it wasn't the time. How could she return to that ritual when the mere memory of it brought her to such a state of fragility?

"Our closeness... Some people misunderstood it. They took platonic hand holding, playing with each other's hair..." She almost got lost in the loss of it all, the reminder that it was likely that she'd never get to enjoy any of those things again. Not with her brother. Not in the purest form of friendship. "I was about to start high school when the rumors began to start up. I had gone to a few parties because I felt guilty that Eddie was missing out because his sister didn't want to be alone on the weekends, and some kids started a rumor and they told their parents and-"

"And your parents caught wind of it?"

"My mother. Our step father wasn't around enough to know anything," she corrected, a tightness in her voice. She told herself that it wasn't time to bring up the absence of a father. This was about her and her brother. "I overheard my mother one day. She was talking to Eddie, telling him that he couldn't go to college here. He said that he wanted to, that he had his full tuition paid at Texas Tech. That's when we both realized that she wasn't insisting because of financial problems."

"She wanted to separate you two... because of rumors?"

Will couldn't tell what kind of people he despised more. The ones who thrived on spreading lies and slandering the names of others like Freddie Lounds or the ones that believed those lies.

"She'll never admit to it. She'll insist it was something else, just like how she insists that she's a good mother," Bella muttered bitterly. She was a mess of emotions, being hit with waves of fondness, sadness, nostalgia, and then anger. Then again, she was never well adept at balancing emotions. "She gave him a choice: Go somewhere else and come back to visit on holidays and during the summer - during which she almost always made sure I was away at some camp or on some vacation - or just be kicked out and send me away. She said she 'just can't have something so wrong surrounding the family.'

"So he left. He went to a different university, and I only saw him two times for the rest of my high school experience: Once at the first Christmas after he left - Mother was so furious that he came back, but more so that I was the thing preventing her favorite child from coming back - and then another time at our grandfather's funeral." The memory should have been filled with grief, yet she had a smile on her face. "It was just for a little bit, about fifteen minutes that we were alone, and in that time, he told me that as soon as I graduated, something he knew Mother would allow him to come back for, to have my bags packed because when it was over, he'd take me out of that god forsaken house. He said that we'd just leave. That he met someone who paid enough money for him to buy a house, enough money to where we wouldn't have to worry about anything."

"So you left? With him?"

Tears began running down her cheeks again, her hands tightening around his until he felt his bones aching. She stared up at him with wide and powerless eyes as she answered, "No." She raised her hand and wiped them furiously away. There was no reason to cry here. She told herself that crying was useless, that crying wouldn't bring him back, but they wouldn't stop.

Her teary eyed gaze wandered back at Will. He was still staring back at her. She loosened her grip on his hand. She'd clung so tightly to him in her feelings of abandonment in fear that if she didn't hold onto him, he, too, would leave her.

"Then where is he?" Will asked carefully.

If her brother loved her half as much as she seemed to love him, surely he would have came back, even just to visit. There would have been more pictures. There should have been more if he came back, but thinking back to her parents' house, there was nothing beyond his high school graduation. Even if he had kept away long enough, wouldn't he have came back just to see her after hearing what happened?

"I don't know!" Bella cried, angrily wiping away the tears that continued falling. "He just... H-He never came ba-ack. I was waiting and-and waiting! I waited for weeks! I thought, 'maybe he couldn't take off b-because of work' or 'm-maybe something happened to hold him up'. But he never... He... I don't know," she sobbed as she covered her eyes, trying to stifle years of wanting to cry flooding to the surface.

"Bell-"

"I looked for him," she blurted out, bringing her hands away from her eyes, now red and puffy. "I tried moving on... I tried... I went to college - the one he went to. I thought if I went there, maybe h-he would just be there, but he wasn't... He wasn't-"

"Bella," Will tried again, watching helplessly as she fell into hysterics.

She pulled herself up, her hands wrapping around herself as if to try to stop herself from falling apart.

"I couldn't take it anymore, so I left looking for him. I dropped ev-everything and left! I spent ye-years trying to find him! I traced every goddamn lead and _nothing_! I found nothing! I did... I did everything I could. I looked for him everywhere... The things I saw... The things I had to do... The things that were done to me... _Nothing._ "

She was staring straight, but her eyes were far away, nothing but horror on her face.

"Bellamy!"

Her eyes snapped back to the present, back to him.

He hadn't meant to raise his voice, but she was slipping away and he knew it.

" _Will._ "

Her voice was quiet, choking out the syllable almost in a whimper.

He stared at her as she caught her breath, the rise and fall of her chest slowing. His outburst at her almost delirious fit was instantly forgotten. The roughness of her, the jagged edges of a survivor that he once saw were now under a new light. And all her sharpened edges held new meaning. She had been shattered. He wanted to know the things she "saw", the things she "had to do", and what were "done" to her. Yet, he didn't need to.

As her the sobs wrecking through her body subsided, she watched him. Her brown eyes were shining with something, something he'd caught a glimpse of, but it felt as though he were seeing it for the first time. Strongly. Clearly.

Will was captivated by the woman before him. She was strong. He knew by looking at her, before and even more so now, that she'd seen and done, even endured things that couldn't be spoken. She didn't survive unscathed. She was still vulnerable, still fragile. She was capable of great strength, unprecedented intelligence. She could have so easily been a storm, tearing apart everything just as she was, yet she responses to pain: to mirror it or to go against it. She chose kindness.

He saw that kindness in the moments she'd whisper to his dogs when the weather was bad and when they were frightened. He saw it when she would hum softly as she watered the plants at his house, singing quietly for them to grow. He saw it in the brief moments she'd look across the room and smile so warmly at him, eyes shining just for him.

Even broken down, breathing raggedly, being hit with waves of ruthless memories, currents of devastation pulling her under. Even as tears burned her eyes red, even though he'd already seen so much of her - Will remembers how he frantically pulled her from the earth, uncaring of her naked body, just worried about one thing: keeping her alive - she still tried to contain her tears. Even in her hysterics, she stubbornly clenched her jaw through her weeping, trying to swallow her sobs with deep, yet frantic breaths.

Even after all of that, he still looked at her just as he had before.

The only difference was the feeling that filled his chest. It was burning in his lungs, coming out with each breath. It was filling, energizing. It brought him enough strength to do what he hadn't done before.

He reached a hand towards her, moving a strand of still damp hair out of her face. His other moved on its own, wiping a tear off her cheek.

She was staring back, her wide eyes looking unto him with anticipation. She saw what he was doing before he himself knew.

He savored the look in those eyes before he leaned forwards, placing his lips over hers.

His kiss was tender, his hands holding her just as gently. The storm of emotions she'd been feeling vanished, and she was lost. Closing her eyes, she gave into the feeling of his calloused hands, his warm lips on hers. Her hands gently pulled him closer, fingers curling into his in his hair. She was aware of nothing except for him. His lips, his hands that moved to the back of her neck and the small of her back holding her close.

Too soon did she pull away, looking to him with tired, half-open eyes, resisting the urge to just fall back into another kiss. Had the lights been on, he would have seen her cheeks as red as wine.

Her lips lifted into a crooked smile, watching as Will slowly returned to his senses.

"Was this your attempt to 'help clear my mind'?" she asked.

Will gave a breathy chuckle at the notion of having done something so... so... predictable?

No.

No, he couldn't have predicted it himself.

When he left Virginia with her, he held no intentions to end up with his lips on hers. Yet, he couldn't entirely say that he would not have done exactly as he had if he knew he'd end up exactly like this.

"No," he answered with a hopeless smile of his own. His eyes traveled down to her lips, unknowing hers did the same.

"What was behind that?" she asked in a whisper.

"Impulse."

And just like him, she moved without thought, with pure impulse, leaning into him, her lips brushing against his own.

This time, when she pulled away, catching her breath, she found his arms still around her, one of her hands on his chest, the other on his shoulder, both unwilling to fully let the other go.

"So where does this leave us?" she asked, looking him in the eyes.

"Together," he answered after some time.

She nodded, and moved to rest her head on his shoulder, closing her eyes, retreating into the promise that he gave in their embrace.

It didn't matter where exactly they were, what they were.

All that mattered was that they were together.

* * *

 _ **So I'm late again. I apologize.**_

 _ **I lost my first draft again, which had her actually going to places that she used to, and in the second draft, it wasn't going well, so I scrapped it. As an apology (and bribery) I decided to do something a little sweet at the end, so hopefully you won't crucify me.**_

 _ **I'd like to give a special thanks to**_ _ **Guest,**_ ** _xxyangxx2006,_** ** _CaptainMc,_** ** _LisaxDeanshipper97,_** ** _twelia_** ** _, Violette Penn, Mara-Lethe, MariDark, and tiburce57_** ** _. You guys taking the time to review really holds a place in my heart and keeps me motivated (I read them far too many times...)._**

 ** _Knowing that people actually enjoy this and are reading something I wrote is... There are no words!_**

 ** _To those who don't review, thank you for reading!_**

 ** _Please, anyone feel free to leave your thoughts, opinions, etc give me life..._**

 ** _I feel like I'm kinda getting the hang of writing, but I still have a long way to go, especially with_** ** _telling this story..._**

 ** _So, once again, thank you so, so, so much! Honestly, I cannot express how happy I am._**

 ** _Ps:_ _The next chapter will definitely have her meeting Abigail! I might introduce Freddie..._**


	7. Chapter 7

**All rights to Hannibal (TV) belong to NBC.**

* * *

 _ **Studio 6, Lubbock, Texas**_

For the first time in years, she didn't wake up feeling alone.

When she raised her head, she found his eyes staring back at her, comfortable, yet still somewhat afraid. She understood the feeling all too well.

"I.." His voice was low, yet unsure. He didn't know what to do or say. Neither did she. Yet, she simply decided to rest her head against him once more, sighing as she relaxed some, silently urging him to do the same.

"What do we do now?" she asked in a whisper.

She felt his lips on the top of her head. It wasn't a response. It was a mirror, a promise, an acceptance to whatever it was they were.

"Let's go home," she heard him say in a calm, yet more sure, voice.

She didn't think much on how he didn't call it his "house", or "back". She knew as well as he did that "home" was exactly the same place in both of their minds. That same house in Wolf Trap, filled with dogs and empty of all the worries of the lives they both weren't fit for. Home was where her pain was forgotten, and all that remained was a stronger sense of the same warmth she had lying in bed with him.

And so, she gave a faint nod of agreement. As much as she hated the idea of Jack's money going to waste, she couldn't stay. This place was as familiar to her as foreign ruins. She could look at it all she wanted. She could try to imagine what life was like here, but she would never be able to fully connect to it. She wouldn't be able to see it. Not fully. All she would ever be able to see was the broken and crumbling echo of what could have been, a place that once had potential to hold life, only to have failed. It was a living ghost town. Something that she could linger in, but never fully live.

On the way to the airport, she looked out the window, watching everything pass her by. She saw her old high school, the gas station she'd stop by on her way home to buy sour candies, the library where she hid inside when life at home was too much. Everything looked exactly the same since the first time she left, even that feeling of relief washing over her as it all got smaller with distance.

 _ **Will Graham's House, Wolf Trap, Virginia**_

Warmth.

Unprecedented warmth.

His hand was running comfortingly over her back as they lied quietly on the couch. He couldn't tell how long he'd been watching her, if it had been years or hours, breathing. There was a gentleness to the rise and fall, one that he hadn't appreciated before. It was so small, but seeing it, feeling it, brought a warmth in his chest, one that grew. It felt somewhat intoxicating, holding her.

It was almost startling how easy things had fallen into place.

On the plane ride back, they'd been just as separated. Their hands had touched once, and both, out of reflex, drew away. The drive home was made in silence.

But then they got home.

The second that the smell of clean linens, the dogs, and something he could never quite place, but always felt comforted by, entered his nostrils, he felt at peace. Bella was no different. In the corner of his eyes, he could see her, taking cautious steps inside, careful eyes sweeping over everything in sight as she made her way through the house, a tension still in her shoulders lessened once she was satisfied. What she was looking for, watching out for, he did not know.

He watched as she immediately walked into the living room, his dogs circling her, jumping in excitement at their return. She lowered herself to the floor, greeting them all with the same warmth he saw all those nights ago when he'd first brought her over for drinks. He heard a soft sigh leave her as she hugged Buster, who was whining when he couldn't get close enough because of the other seven. The smile on her face as she looked up at him was enough for him to forget how strange it was, the domesticity of it all.

It felt as though he had seen this before, as if he'd done this before. It was so easy to see it happen again, too. He would come home, after a long day being pried open for information by Jack or teaching lectures to all too eager students, and he would see this. Her and the dogs, and everything else, all the stress and worry, would fade into the background.

That is what the past few days were.

It was a blur of peace, enjoying the smallest of things. There was pleasure in it, the breakfasts they both made together, the walks outside with the dogs, the satisfaction of winning a game of poker, or the simple joy of quietly reading on the same couch they were currently lying on.

And here he was, staring at the back of her head, running his fingers into her hair, wondering how they'd gotten to this point. As he lifted a lock, twirling it around like a screw tightening, he wondered who exactly this woman was. For all that he knew, and the more he thought, the more certain he was that he didn't know much, he still felt as though he had. She was a stranger. A familiar stranger. She felt less like someone he'd met not too long ago and more like someone he'd once known. He felt like he knew her nature, the way she moved, the way she spoke, the way she was. The only things he didn't know was what happened. _What happened?_ The question had been driving him mad. At first, it was just an irritating question that came every so often, but then it began to nag at him. Now, even in the quietest of moments, the question dug into his skin, wanting to break and bleed out what he wouldn't let leave his lips.

He wouldn't do that to her.

Before he could force his thoughts out, Bella lifted her head, eyes wide with a look of alarm. She didn't look like she'd just woken. She was wide awake, her body tense, lips pressed together, brows furrowed. He didn't say a word, only a look of confusion gave way to what he was thinking. She said nothing, only untangling herself from him, sliding off the couch, slender fingers snatching the blanket that was on the ground before walking towards the stairs. He almost didn't hear her speak.

"Someone's here."

The day they got home, Will texted Jack. Not a call. If he called, that would put him in a place to answer Jack's questions. Instead, he just left a simple message, telling him that he would see him when their promised time off was done. He put thoughts of work away. At first, it made him guilty, but that feeling faded over time. He hadn't thought about it in two days. Two whole, stress-free days. His nights had a kind of quiet stillness that he couldn't imagine possible until they were over. It was like being in their own world within the walls of their home. All the bad things in life were beyond the gravel, the blackened asphalt of the roads that lead nowhere kind. But inside their house, with land he owned under their feet, they were safe and sound.

It was as though they were living on holy grounds.

Pulling himself off the couch, he felt dread begin to weigh on his shoulder. As he shuffled towards the door, he cast a look over his shoulders, looking for her, Bella, but she was nowhere in sight. She was a ghost of a woman sometimes.

Stepping out onto his porch, not even thinking of putting on clothes, still dressed in only boxers and a wrinkled shirt, he winced at the brightness of the morning. His hand lifted, rubbing at his eyes out of habit. He heard the sound of his own little pack of dogs before he felt them bounding past him down the stairs. When he opened his eyes, he saw them, all rushing towards the driveway. A car door opening and closing sounded. It was then that he realized Bella had been right. They weren't alone anymore. Someone had breached the walls of their home.

The second he saw Alana Bloom, smiling at him, he felt that familiar fist of embarrassment clasp around his neck. One of his hands instinctively reached towards his hair, tussled from having only just gotten out of bed. The second his calloused fingers grazed against strands of his hair, his hand dropped. There was nothing he could do to better his appearance.

"Morning," Alana greeted, blue eyes bright and kind, just like her smile, one Will did not return.

"I didn't hear you drive up," he said, a frown resting on his tired face.

"Hybrid," Alana answered with a sharp and charming glint in her eyes. "Good car for stalking."

He briefly wondered how Bella had heard it.

Thinking of Bella, he felt a sickening sense of guilt pulling at his heart. He knew how she felt towards Alana. Well, he knew enough to know that she might not be as happy with a visit. Where the two lied in their opinion of one another was... unknown.

Looking down, he felt that compulsion to cover himself. Under her eyes, he felt unclean. That was a distinct difference in what it felt like to be under the eyes of the two. With Alana, he wanted to shroud himself, hiding from her all too sharpened gaze. With Bella, he all too easily bared himself, his scars, for her to see in hopes of her doing the same.

"Why are you here, Alana?" He asked, looking, not at her, but out towards the road.

Alana's smile faltered, noticing the change of welcoming he gave her. Something had changed in the time that he and Ms. Bennet were gone, she concluded at the least.

When she decided to see Will, to deliver the news, she imagined to be filled with relief. She imagined that he would be glad to see her, to see a familiar face. But that wasn't the case. In the short time off, something changed. He was no longer gazing at his shoes like some kind of broken puppy, the kind he would rescue. No. When he looked at her, though there was an instinctive difference between the two and how they carried themselves, there wasn't that same look in his eyes. There was fondness in them. That hadn't changed. What had changed was that he no longer looked at her as though she were something immaculate, something good, kind, and caring without a single fault. What changed was how he carried himself. He was standing taller. His shoulders weren't hunched. And, when she drew closer, looking at his eyes, searching for that look of sheepish affection, there was none. In that, she felt slighted. A dull and distant ache rested in her heart, but, like the professional she was, she did what she came to do.

"Abigail Hobbs woke up."

Will's eyes snapped back to her.

There was shock in his eyes. It hadn't occurred to him, not recently, that the world would continue to turn, change, while they laid still in their smaller world. They had left their expected location, not a single person beside him and her to know what they were doing, where they were at, respectively. Yet, here was proof that the world had gone on. Looking out at Alana, Will recalled the image of another dark haired, blue eyed girl. One he killed for, one Bella died for. It almost seemed unbelievable.

"I have to-" His voice cut off as he turned towards the door. His first action was to go to her, Bella. He wanted to tell her that this girl, this child, they both saved was now awake. It was that natural paternal rush, and like when they came home a few days earlier, he was caught in how easily they came into this place of togetherness. It was alarming, how quickly she came into his life, into his heart, replacing things he couldn't think replaceable. Things like Alana. He'd once bared a crush on the woman. One that started from every so often encounters, falling for that charming smile, the every so often smile that lifted his chest, if only for a moment. Where had that heaviness that accompanied the knowledge that he would never be good enough for her gone?

Turning his head back to her, he wondered if it was her that changed, if she was responsible for that lack of feeling he had for her. He was wrong. Nothing had changed about Alana. Her dark hair was still curled softly. Her clothes still styled to be both professional, yet welcoming. In looks, she was more conventional. She didn't have the tangled knots he'd been brushing out earlier, or the dark circles under her eyes that Bella, though faded, still had. Alana was more of a well watched and watered garden rose, while Bella was like wild daisies, growing in the most surprising of places. And although he would still harbor that tense and protectiveness towards Alana, under her calm and collectively watchful eyes, he didn't feel that ache he once had.

"Want me to get you a cup of coffee?" Alana asked, worry beginning to show on her face as his silence carried on. Will quickly shook his head, remembering his place, remembering the time. Despite his declining, Alana continued to move forward, climbing up the steps, offering another one of her smiles. "Let's have a cup of coffee," she insisted. "Or tea. I think a nice soothing cup of tea would do us well," she added, passing him by, opening the door, trying to usher him in. This was Alana. She was nice, friendly, kind. She was the one willing to break that rule of hers, the never being alone with him, not knowing that she still wouldn't.

Why did he let her?

He let Alana walk into his house, into his kitchen. She hung her coat on the back of a chair, moving towards the coffee maker. All he did was watch her, as she made them tea, ignoring the ringing of her phone. It felt wrong, especially when she gave him his cup of tea. Will thought back to all the times he would have enjoyed this, a nice warm cup of tea with her, but now it just felt like betrayal, even more so knowing that Bella was upstairs. Will thought to mention her presence, but unlike Alana, he wasn't well adept at conversation. He didn't know how to say it without sounding, well, of what he did not know. Instead, he focused on the ringing, recognizing the name of the caller.

"Is he going to keep calling?" Will asked, tasting something sour in his mouth. He briefly wondered if Jack had sent her.

"Jack wants you to see her," Alana explained, lips pursed for a moment before she took a sip of her tea. Will noticed the way she said, "you". It wasn't that Jack was asking something of her that bothered him. It was Jack asking for Will's involvement that bothered her. That stung some. He couldn't blame her though. "I don't think you should see her, Will. At least, if you did, I wouldn't want it to be by Jack's will," she continued, a tired expression crossing her features. "Abigail is my patient. You are-" He noticed her hesitation, the brief contemplation of what they were, where they stood in proximity to one another. "-my friend, and-" She didn't sound convincing in the slightest. "-I would like to have what is best for the both of you. I want to go by what you two need more than Jack." Even in their disagreement in if he should or shouldn't visit, he appreciated her defensiveness.

"Abigail Hobbs doesn't have anyone," he reminded her, a brief flicker of guilt knotted in his stomach. He'd killed her father. Even in saving her, he did her wrong, in some way or another.

"You can't be her everyone," Alana quickly reminded him. "You..." Her lips snapped shut. Will frowned at her studden quietness until he saw that her eyes weren't on him, but looking behind him. He didn't have to look to see Bella, but he did, if only to see her face, to see if she would allow him to see even the slightest bit as to what she was thinking or feeling. Once he turned, seeing the woman, dressed in those same inconspicuous clothes that she'd worn at her hometown, he felt that guilt from earlier. He felt as though he'd been caught doing something wrong.

Yet, she smiled.

Or, he thought she did. It was so quick and so small, that it might have been his imagination.

"I... I didn't know you had company," Alana managed to get out, eyes flashing to him.

"Don't mind me," Bella said quickly. She pulled her phone out of her pocket. "I heard the news," she explained, tucking it back in, taking a seat beside Will. He noticed how she pulled out the chair, subtly dragging it to the side, away from him, so that when she'd scoot back in, she wouldn't be as close. He briefly wonders if she was lying. Not so much as lying as to say she hadn't heard the news, only misleading on who she heard it from.

Alana just nodded, taking her words in, and adjusting herself accordingly, losing some of that familiarity she gave him, if only just by a little.

"As I was saying," Alana began again."The first person Abigail talks to about what happened can't be anyone who was there when it happened. That means no Dr. Lecter, either."

There was silence, a bittersweet truth to her words.

"Will, as much as I know you want to speak to her, to tell her-"

"No," Will said quickly, cutting her off with an understanding shake of the head. "I get it. I can't talk to her yet."

"I can visit her."

Their eyes fell on Bella, who sat staring so surely at Alana. It wasn't that sureness that accompanied determined people. No. It was the kind of sureness that didn't need determination. It was the certainty of fact. It didn't feel like a suggestion.

"I," Alana's voice died in her throat when Bella's eyes met hers. She couldn't tell quite what the feeling that filled her when those brown eyes took hers, but it was unsettling. "I suppose after my initial visit, you may." She was speaking slower, more carefully choosing her words. "Though, I'm not sure what you have to gain."

"Jack wanted Will to see her." There was not a second of hesitation when Bella said it. "Besides," she continued, pulling out her phone again, her fingers quickly typing something neither he or Alana could see. "She might not trust you."

Alana shifted in her seat, sitting straighter. She now wore a frown on her face, confused less by the suggestion that a girl going through trauma might not trust her and more with how sure Bella seemed that she would be able to be more trusted. "Why do you say that?"

Looking up from her phone, straight at Alana, Bella opened her mouth. For a moment, nothing came out. Will wondered if she considered telling Alana some truth, something even he didn't know, by the look that she quickly gave him.

Swallowing whatever she was going to say, taking a moment to recollect, she found her answer.

"Because I wouldn't."

 ** _Jack Crawford's Office, B.A.U., Washington, D.C._**

The office was too small for the five of them. Alana, Hannibal, Will, and her. Jack was seated behind his desk, sitting proud, strong, looking more like a man commanding a fortress than the Head of Behavioral Sciences. Will was situated in the middle of Alana and Hannibal, looking rougher, less put together, emphasized by two better dressed professionals. Dr. Lecter, in his well-tailored suit, seemed relaxed in his chair. Still proud, but less smug and more knowing. His eyes were on Jack, but they would stray towards Will, who, much more distressed, was leaning forward, elbows on the ends of the armrests, just shying away from setting them on his knees.

Then there was Alana.

She was a sight. Slender, mature, looking every bit as respectable as she was. Seated on the right of Will, she looked every bit the guardian angel that she acted as. Especially that lovely and healing blue dress.

Bella wondered if she consciously chose that.

She'd seen Alana more than Alana had seen her, and any time Alana intentionally directed herself on a professional level, she was in blue. When she came to Jack to talk about Will, she wore blue. When she went to go and see Abigail Hobbs, she wore blue. And, here she was, both standing against Will and for the "betterment" of Abigail, she was in blue. It seemed foolish at first, but Bella was just as guilty of intentionally wearing colors as she was beginning to think Alana was. It was why she was there, not in black, but in a smokey grey sweater, dark jeans, and worn in brown boots. She knew Jack's office was grey. Standing in the back, refusing the offer of trying to squeeze in another chair, she felt safer being closer to the door and out of the sights of an FBI agent with acute empathy and two distinguished psychiatrists.

Jack was her only worry, but he was too busy. He had "seven families" in need of finding whatever was left of their daughters.

She had to respect Jack.

As pushing as he was, he was also the champion of justice. He was so strong and sure of his purpose. He saw and heard what was needed of him, what was asked of him, and he gave his best trying to do just that. In her eyes, he was an old fashioned soul. How easy she could see him in another time, some other officer of the law, just trying to do his best for others. The world needed more men like Jack Crawford, even if he was going after someone Bella was certain didn't deserve it.

Deserve was the wrong word, but she didn't dwell on it. Not when Alana began recounting her visit.

"She was surprisingly practical."

"Suspiciously practical?" Jack prompted, a frown setting on his aging features.

Bella wanted to scoff, but it was in poor taste to even her. Practicality, resourcefulness, it was self preservation, one of the most human traits there was. She could hardly fault the girl for feeling it. She could hardly fault the girl.

"I think she's hiding something."

Bella's eyes flashed to Alana, thinking back to what she had already assumed would happen. She couldn't blame Alana for disregarding what she suggested. After all, what was she but a former waitress with only a few years of college experience?

Still. She understood the Hobbs girl better. At least, more than one would assume.

"She has a penchant for manipulation," Alana went on, the worry beginning to show. "She withheld information to gain information. She demonstrated only enough emotions to prove she had them."

"Appreciating my lack of sympathy?" Jack asked, so quick to assume those "findings" were signs of guilt. Bella was guilty of those exact traits, and he was trusting of her more than Abigail, and she worked for him. "If you're questioning her sincerity-"

"What I'm questioning is her state of mind," Alana said quickly. "She repeated something I said when she was... unconscious."

"Leading to believe she wasn't?" Jack guessed.

"It was... odd."

"The body may be resting, but the mind can still be awake."

It was the first time that she spoke up in this meeting.

When eyes fell on her, she averted her eyes, looking to the floor, regretting a moment of impulse. It felt hypocritical, to judge Alana so quickly on her protectiveness towards Will when, here she was, trying to defend Abigail. And so, when she looked back, finding them still looking at her, waiting for her to explain, she bit the inside of her cheek. She wasn't like Alana or Hannibal. She didn't go through medical school. She didn't have that same education that would give her the luxury of her word being enough. Will had more credibility than her. It was times like this when she regretted leaving Benny's. She wouldn't have to share like she did with them.

"I was once injured," she began, looking for the right words. "Badly. I, uh, I was in the hospital. I was in a coma, and I remember some prayers being read."

"Could it be something you just remember from church?" Jack asked, losing belief in her.

"I've never been given my last rites before then, _Agent_ Craford." There was silence after the sharpened tone she used. Perhaps she had gone too far. Perhaps she shared too much.

"As Ms. Bennet has proven," Hannibal began, clearing his throat, calling away the attention resting on her. "It is not unheard of for the comatose or anesthetized to recall word for word conversations that took place in their presence.

As much as she wanted to be thankful for his backing her up, there was something in his eyes when he spared her a look that promised that, even if he hid her from others people's eyes, this wasn't free. He was a devil in a tailored suit.

"I want Will to talk to her," Jack continued, looking back to Alana. There was no protests from Hannibal. In fact, the idea almost looked pleasing to him. Alana, however, wasn't pleased.

Her nostrils flared, but she hid her temper. It wasn't out of respect for Jack that she reeled herself in. Bella knew that by the flickering gaze Alana had, switching from Jack to Will. It was because of him. Will. For as kindly as she treated Will, for as many times as she suggested Will was guilty of taking in strays, broken dogs, she was doing the same. Will was her stray, and she regarded him as something broken, something in need of a protected home, and that protected home was far from Jack's vigilant clutches. On some level, Bella could see herself almost wanting to agree with the woman.

"No. Not yet," Alana insisted.

"Doctor Bloom, you're not Will's psychiatrist." Oh, how she'd like to be. "Dr. Lecter is."

Said doctor sat up in his seat, eyes looking straight into Alana's. Bella could see it in his posture. He was embodying the professor, and Alana Bloom so easily fell back into being his trusting student.

"For intents and purposes, yes, but I'm not entirely objective on this." _Of course, he wouldn't be._ "Will and I share a compassion for Abigail Hobbs, we saved her life."

Bella noticed his eyes briefly slide to her, as if to say, 'See. I am protecting you. I am hiding you.' It felt sickening, dirty, knowing that, on some level, to some degree, she was in debt to him. She already silently sold her soul away, but he was a hungry man with hungry eyes, looking to elevate a debt to trust.

"Perhaps a compromise?" Hannibal asked, looking from Alana to Jack.

Bella hadn't even told him. Yet, he knew what she wanted.

"Alana clearly has reservations towards Will and I speaking to Abigail anytime soon. You-" His eyes turned to Jack, who was all too eager to listen. "-want Will to go for his ability to see her, understand her."

" _Hannibal_ -"

Alana was desperate, resorting to a call on familiarity, maybe even friendship.

"Ms. Bennet is neither her psychiatrist, nor was present during her attack."

Will rose from his hunched state, looking to Hannibal with a knowing gaze. There was a twitch to the right side of his lips, a hint of a smile. It wasn't that growing fondness that worried Bella. It was the look in Hannibal's eyes. That bright, shining, thrill that came into that almost omniscient gaze as his own lips curled. The smile was a ghost of that one that he'd given her. It was that same handsome, yet disturbing smile. It filled her body, every fiber of her being, with the urge to defend herself. That _knowing_ smile. It was powerful, compulsive in that he could ask something of her, Will, _anybody_ , and so long as those smiling lips spoke, she would do as he asked. No questions.

It was instinctive, the obedience one could feel under _those_ eyes and _that_ smile.

But Will fell for it all the same.

Turning to Alana, he spoke.

"She did say that 'the first person Abigail talks to about what happened can't be anyone who was there when it happened.'"

Alana stared at the two at a loss of words, a look of betrayal in her eyes. Jack's eyes, however, were staring at her, Bella. This time, she did not look away. She was taking a page out of his book, standing tall for what she wanted, even if it so happened to coincide with the likes of someone she didn't trust - or, rather, wasn't comfortable with how much she trusted.

"Would you be willing to speak to Abigail Hobbs?"

"I'll tell you what I find."

 ** _Abigail Hobb's Room,_** ** _Port Haven Psychiatric Facility,_** _ **Baltimore, Maryland**_

"So you're not a doctor or a nurse or a psychiatrist?"

"Correct."

"What are you?"

"I don't know if I actually have a specific job title, but I used to be a waitress."

She knew Abigail was a pretty girl even when she was unconscious, but now awake, she was beautiful. Sitting upright in bed, light blue eyes staring inquisitively at her, Bella was impressed. She looked like how Alana described. Practical, stable, capable of making sound decisions. If it wasn't for the bandage on her neck, Bella would have assumed the girl to be just that: A girl with a pretty doll-like face. They both knew better, though. And so, instead of music and clothes, she brought food. Two cupcakes and lemonade, more expensive than she'd usually spend on sweets, but she figured it was better than what was served at the hospital on most days.

The important thing was that it didn't have meat in it, something she was sure that put Abigail at ease, judging by how the girl continued to nibble at it.

"So, Jack Crawford sent you to..." The girl didn't finish, both of them knowing well what the FBI would assume, what the rest of the public had already assumed.

"That's what he wants me to do," Bella answered from her place on Abigail's bed. There was a seat to the right of the bed, one by the window as well, but she chose the bed. It was a demonstration of a lack of professionalism, a lack of specific intention.

"And are you?" Abigail asked quietly after some time. When Bella looked at her, she saw a flash of paranoia, worry, that deep and crippling sense of fear, if only for a second.

Bella didn't touch her. She didn't reach forward and put a comforting hand over Abigail's icing-stained fingers. She just looked at her, clearly and honestly.

"I'm here because I wanted to see for myself, who you are."

Abigail's brow furrowed in confusion. Looking down at her cupcake, as if to pick apart the message that came with having been given it, having accepted it, would give her an answer as to who this woman was. For as long as she stared, all she heard was silence. The only answer she'd found was more questions.

"They said you saved me."

"Will Graham and Hannibal Lecter saved you."

"No. Not from my dad. From that... that other man," she said, having not gotten the full story. That man wasn't the important part though. All she cared about was this woman, this stranger who put her life on the line for someone she didn't know. "If Jack Crawford sent you, and he believes I... Why would you save someone who everyone else thinks to be guilty?" It made no sense to her.

"I don't follow Jack's belief."

"You don't think I helped my father?"

"I don't know."

That made even less sense. If she didn't know whether or not she was guilty, why would she still risk it? Why almost die for _her?_

A sigh left Bella's lips. She was looking at the door. For a moment, she seemed to be lost in thought, lost in the words of her own answer, but then she moved. Sliding off the bed, walking towards the small music player that Alana had brought her, she turned it on. She placed it by the door, turning up the volume loud, but not loud enough to be alarming to other patients or staff.

Satisfied, she looked back to Abigail, a solemn expression on her face. Slowly, she made her way over, sitting closer than before, close enough to be heard in a quiet voice, one that wouldn't be heard outside because of the music.

"Abigail," Bella began, her eyes flickering down to Abigail's hand, now resting on her lap. It was the same hand that she held before. And, for a moment, she almost rested her hand over it once more. She didn't. It was Abigail, who moved, sitting up straighter. The younger girl couldn't tell what was coming over her, only that she wanted answers. "I don't know what you're capable of."

The words hit her like the cold silver knife her father laid on her throat, cutting her deeply. She felt bare, naked under this woman's eyes. This woman who laid her life down for her, looking at her as though she knew exactly who she died for, and it terrified her.

" _But_ , I do know one thing, and I want you to hear this," she whispered, taking Abigail's hand. The touch didn't feel manipulative. It didn't feel like the ones her father gave, the lingering touch with a warning, a promise that his touch would remain gentle if she pleased him. With her, with this woman, the touch of the hand almost felt comforting. Understanding in a way Abigail had long since forgotten.

Her blue eyes met brown, and she felt her questions fall silent.

"You don't owe anyone anything."

The words felt cold, but not like metal. It felt like rain, cold autumnal rain, washing away the sweat of the summer, cleansing her, preparing her for a world of white, something clean, renewing.

Her words felt like rebirth.

But, Abigail couldn't trust her. Not yet.

For all she knew, this was just a tactic. Alana Bloom brought her gifts, and began digging into her. This woman brought her food, and Abigail was just waiting for her to begin digging. When it never came, she felt her guard waver. She told herself that Bella might be trying to get her to talk, to confess, but every time she thought of that, Bella's words would echo in her ears.

Days passed. Weeks too.

Every so often, Bella would come by, asking how she was, talking to her about insignificant things.

She became almost obsessed with her, watching every tiny movement, trying to uncover her motives, but it quickly became apparent that in spite of being with the FBI and having to consult with psychiatrists and agents and god knows who else, she was human. Profoundly human. When they were together in the same room, Abigail tried talking to her, trying to do digging of her own with that same method of providing information in order to receive, but the more it happened, the less it felt justified. Especially after hearing about her brother, something that left her feeling as though she had wronged Bella by having prompted the story by angrily saying, "You don't know what its like to lose everything you knew about the people you loved."

After then, Abigail spoke in monosyllables, expecting some retaliation, some outburst of anger or even an admittance to being some mole for Jack. But it never came. And after realizing that she had been wrong, Abigail almost felt unable to make eye contact with the woman who hid behind her hair.

Abigail began to wonder who or what could have possibly have happened to her, what "more" or "other things" she had to endure because the more Abigail looked, the more she felt as though she were staring into a mirror. She wanted to keep a level head, to stay wary of Bella Bennet, but instead, she felt almost related in a sense. The only time she saw Bella look genuinely happy was when Abigail and her were interacting. It was while they played chess or did crosswords, or even when Abigail shared about insignificant things in her life, the little things she missed like her curtains or having lunch with her friend Marissa.

The visits became more regular. The music they played to hide their voices became more detailed. Hell, the music itself even had a place in Abigails heart. Alana had once noticed a new CD, a custom burnt one that had their favorite songs on it. She asked to see "it", but Abigail defensively corrected her, saying "its mine and Bella's." Even though Abigail never told Bella what happened, even though she made sure to prove that she was sound of mind - was it even proving? She never felt like a pretender in Bella's presence - Bella still came by. The nurses recognized her, letting her through security easier, no longer looking warily at the food she brought Abigail - something Abigail also favored. "Grandma Betty's Cupcakes" was her favorite.

Bella sitting hunched over the table, lying beside her on the bed as they read horribly superficial magazines, her pacing in circles, or sitting cross-legged on the floor, it was easy. Easy to trust in her. Abigail found her heart warming at the sight of a friendly face, even when that face was proudly smiling after winning a round of chess. That was something else she found. Bella felt like a mentor. She'd teach Abigail things, be it chess, accents, or even how to do her hair.

While Alana was gently guiding her, doing her job as a psychiatrist, readying her for what the world was like, Bella was already plunging in, telling her tricks she picked up when it came to "the art of disappearing." Something Abigail was curious to know how she knew as it became apparent that Bella was well adept at blending in. But that was exactly why she felt so familiar. Bella was adaptable. She was a survivor - of what, Abigail didn't know. But she made it through, and that was enough to give Abigail hope.

Especially when a red haired woman walked through the door.

Bella and her had been trying to draw each other, an art neither was really good at. They looked like children's drawings, but they both had fun criticizing it, acting as though it were pieces in some art museum - neither had actually been to an art museum, so it was all truly guess work on how people acted. Bella had been in the middle of talking about how Abigail's choice of giving her different shaped eyes held a lot of meaning, which Abigail defended herself as being unable to draw two similar circles, when the woman walked in, wearing surprise on her face at the sight of Bella.

"I'm sorry, I wasn't aware you had a visitor," the woman apologized with a smile.

The woman had long and curly red hair. Like Alana, she was dressed sharply, but not in the sense that she was a psychiatrist. She looked stylish. Wealthy even. The only thing not proud was her smile, thin pink lips curled upwards. She was beautiful. High cheekbones, sky-blue eyes, even a smooth voice. But she was a stranger to them both.

"I can come back at a different time," the woman offered.

Abigail gave a look to Bella, silently asking for her opinion.

When they had gotten to this point was unclear. It was like all people one cared for. They never really could detect when they began to care, only when they were already in the middle of caring.

Bella only raised a single brow, an earnest look in her eyes. This was something that she did when a nurse or doctor came, asking if everything was okay. Bella gave her the choice to answer. She gave _Abigail_ control, something she always wanted, but rarely got. In her new life, dictated by doctors and psychiatrists, deciding when it was time to sleep or talk to other patients in a circle, Abigail was always thankful when she was given a choice.

"You can stay," Abigail said. "We were just..."

She didn't finish. These little delights felt like something precious, something that was between them and only them. And, whenever she asked about Jack Crawford, what Bella assured, these delights were just between them. It was like having a secret friend.

"Who are you?" she asked, looking to Bella once more. The girl only gave her an encouraging nod.

The woman had been watching, taking note of how the two acted around each other. Yet, when the time came, she stood up straighter, standing across from the two, determined to prove just how worth Abigail's time she was.

"My name is Freddie Lounds," she introduced herself as. When there was no recognition in Bella's eyes, she relaxed some. "I'm a journalist."

That was when something rose in Bella. Though she didn't say a word, she adjusted herself, climbing off the bed, which earned an alarmed look from Abigail.

"You're not allowed to visit," Bella stated, calmly. She could have called for escorts. All of them knew that. Freddie knew the chance she was being given.

"What do you want?" Abigail asked cautiously, crossing her arms.

"I want to tell the truth. Your truth. Sometimes that involves some deception. But know this, I will never lie to you," Freddie stressed, looking more to Abigail than to Bella, as she should have. Abigail, just as she was to all strangers, was distrustful.

"That sounds like what a liar would say."

Freddie didn't waver. Not in the slightest.

"You have every right not to trust me, but in time, Abigail, I hope you let me prove that you can," she said with a look of hope. "If you tell me what you know, I can help you fill in the blanks."

"Why not tell me what you know."

Abigail knew, whether she knew before she woke up or because Bella answered her questions, she knew what her father had done. Freddie Lounds didn't know that, though. Abigail was playing the part of a victim. Bella and her both knew that, and both of them wouldn't tell. It was another secret between them. Even if just for a little bit.

"Your dad was the Minnesota Shrike," Freddie began, already having done _intimate_ research. And so she went on, recounting what she knew. Abigail feigned a look of shock at Freddie telling her about the victims. Though guilt stung in her heart, Bella's words still echoed as if she'd just said them. It became like a prayer to her. _'I don't owe anyone anything.'_

Bella wasn't bothered by Abigail's manipulations. She'd done her own fair of guilty things, all in the name of self-preservation. She couldn't blame Abigail for what she was doing. Not when a journalist, of all people, was standing before her. Journalists were always watching, always analyzing. And, if Abigail could convince at least one of the many journalists hungry for a story to be on her side, she deserved it. She didn't deserve any of this mess her father made.

"You'll be fighting that perception. Perception is the most important thing in your life right now," Freddie said, both stating the truth and building her argument.

"I don't care what anyone thinks."

"You should," Bella said quickly, stepping in, not wanting Abigail to make a mistake.

Abigail's eyes snapped to her, blue eyes looking at her with a childlike confusion. Her eyes looked the woman up and down, taking in her casual and comfortable clothes, no where near as stylish as Freddie.

"You don't care what anyone thinks."

Wrong.

Impossibly wrong.

"I care a lot," Bella said carefully, giving the girl a knowing look, reminding her of what she'd taught her. Survival was not being noticed. It was being careful. It was being cautious. It was caring _a lot_ about what others think. Dressing down meant caring about what others found attractive, and then doing the opposite to avoid being noticed. She said none of this, only looking back to Freddie. "What can you offer her?"

Freddie, surprised by Bella's support, straightened her jacket before looking to Abigail, who, now, was looking considerately at her.

"What you remember, what you tell everyone, is going to define the rest of your life. I can help you."

Abigail's chest began to rise and fall at a quicker rate, remembering that there was a whole world outside with eyes on her.

"I can help you carve a path in this world so you can survive what your father did. And not be held accountable."

Abigail swallowed, trying to take in the truth of what Freddie said. When her eyes returned to Bella, the woman gave her a shrug, unable to help her. It was one of the most painful things Bella had done, but she needed Abigail to know that she wasn't going to be someone who decided things for her.

But she could help.

With a sigh, running her hands through her hair, she looked to her shoes. She wanted to wish herself back to the diner, but she couldn't even muster enough energy to even want it. Not when Abigail was looking at her as hopelessly as she was.

 _Damn it._

She did feel obligation towards Abigail. She felt responsible.

 _Damn it all._

"You want to write something on her? An article?"

"I'd start with an initial article, but I'd like to write a book. The story. Her story," Freddie said quickly, all her attention on Bella. Whoever would give her what she wanted, whoever she needed to convince. She was something hungry.

"When would you start?"

This was when Freddie looked to Abigail, wariness in her eyes. She was caught in between what she wanted to appear as and what exactly she wanted.

"That's up to Abigail, but, even though I wouldn't want to rush you-" There was that same look in her eyes that Alana had when looking at Abigail. Sympathy. Even a bit of pity. "-We'd have to start soon."

"Abs?" Bella said, worriedly looking at her. She had fought so hard to give Abigail a sense of stability, security, and now it was time to test it.

The girl said nothing.

"Sometimes storytelling is cleansing. _You_ would be able to control the narrative. _You_ would be profiting from it, emotionally and economically," Freddie promised. Abigail still didn't look to her, only to Bella, remembering how Alana told her that the house wasn't hers. That the families of the victims would be taking the bulk of what she had.

"The money could help," she said to Bella, as if trying to reason more with her than herself. Bella nodded. Money was one of the few things that she couldn't offer Abigail. When they'd talked about what her previous plans were, how colleges probably wouldn't want her, not now, all Bella could offer was her old place at Benny's. But a book? That could help her. It could help exorcise what her father had cursed her with. That, Bella couldn't give her.

But Freddie? An actual writer? She could do that.

"You don't have to decide now," Freddie assured, moving towards Abigail. She dug into her pocket, procuring a card. "If you want to, just call me on that at any time," she promised.

Accepting the card, Abigail, tiredly, tucked it into the book she'd been reading.

As Freddie neared the door, Abigail looked up.

"Why do you believe me when other people don't?"

Freddie with an all too sweet smile tilted her head down as so Abigail could see into her eyes, to see what she believed to be true as she spoke.

"Because I believe that you've been through enough. Everyone's just looking for a scapegoat, and it shouldn't be you. They already caught your father. That should be the end of it," she answered with. Even Bella had to admit to thinking that a good answer. Genuine or not.

"How did they catch him?"

Bella frowned, looking at Abigail again. The girl never asked how her father was caught because she remembered. And if it were just a ploy to gain answers, what exactly was she looking for?

"A man named Will Graham. Works for the FBI but isn't FBI. He catches insane men because he can think like them-"

That's when the door opened, two orderlies moving inside. Behind them was none other than Will and Hannibal. Standing in the doorway as if speaking a name was enough to summon them.

"-Because he is insane," Freddie finished, her eyes only on Will.

Will didn't say a thing, only looking to the orderlies. Freddie began shaking her head, glaring at him as if he were the devil himself, pulling away from the orderlies in vain.

"I'm not leaving you alone with her."

It would have been a moving scene, a proud and beautiful woman glaring down a roughened man, defending a seemingly defenseless child, but that's all it was. A scene.

"I must insist you leave the room."

There it was.

That accented voice that sounded of elegance and tasted like temptation. It was almost unnatural, watching how Freddie, who was glaring down Will only seconds ago, look to Hannibal, and suddenly be washed clean of her resistance against the orderlies, trying to escort her out. The sight sent shivers down Bella's spine. And so, she turned away from it, looking instead at Abigail, whose face read of a painful mixture of confusion, distrust, and anticipation, who, in turn, was looking at Will. Bella sank down onto the bed, tucking a strand of hair behind the girl's ear, drawing her attention.

"Don't listen to her," she said quietly. "Will has only protected you."

The younger girl, cheeks reddened in her frustration, gave a faint nod.

The sound of a door closing caught their attention, both of them looking at the two men in the room. Both of them unnerved, but looking in different directions.

There was silence.

Will, so lost and weighed down by a heavy and cold memory, was at a loss of words. Here was the girl who had lied bleeding, gasping, terrified by what her father had done and what might become of her. That terror was gone, only a taste of it remained, but it was enough for him to want to turn his eyes away. As his eyes moved away from her, they caught sight of the bandage on her neck, and he was taken back to that moment when he frantically tried to stifle the bleeding. He only broke from the memory when he noticed her lips moving.

"I remember you."

He knew that. Bella had told him as much. Still, he nodded, accepting her words as if it were something new, and, in a way, it had been.

"You killed my dad."

Will swallowed, not sure how to respond to the brutal truth.

He orphaned her.

"I think its time I left," Bella said after some time. It felt wrong for her to be present. Her and Abigail's relationship was built on anonymity. Her lack of personal knowledge of what happened to Abigail is what made her a safe confidant. And this? Will, Hannibal, and Abigail? It was all too personal.

It was guilty.

It was the one feeling that Bella couldn't relate to. Her only obligatory protectiveness didn't come from guilt. It was just _there,_ hanging right in front of her eyes, staring at her, straight as her own reflection. It made her legs feel weak. This whole time, her strength had stemmed from knowing that she hadn't a single thing in the world to lose, that she hadn't anyone else to worry about mourning her, should something happened. And then Abigail Hobbs came into her life, and now? Now, she was feeling almost paralyzed in fear at the way Abigail was looking at her.

'Don't go,' Abigail's eyes said.

As strong as Abigail was, she was not beyond fragility.

 _She's still a child._

Bella was as helpless as Abigail in this moment.

She was never good at caring for something. In her younger years, it was her that was looked after. And, when those maternal feeling should have developed, in her teenage years where all those other girls were dreaming of future families, entertaining the idea of being responsible for a child, she had been too lost in her grief. Now, she was here, responsible, unofficially, for a child she didn't ask for.

Will looked down at his glass. This was why he asked her. It wasn't just because he needed a drink and missed her company. He wanted more. He didn't want someone who could report back to Jack. He didn't want someone who would come to their own conclusions before hearing him. He wanted someone who would know him first, who would trust him first. He wanted to be looked at like an actual person and not a mental case waiting to happen.

"You've been in a bed for 3 weeks," Hannibal said, shattering the tension that was growing between them three, three broken things strung together like a necklace of glass. For once, Bella was grateful. "Abigail. Why don't we have a walk?"

 ** _The Gardens,_** ** _Port Haven Psychiatric Facility,_** _ **Baltimore, Maryland**_

Bella watched as Abigail walked, weak legged, with the help of Will. She couldn't see the girl's face, only her back as she and Will went on, leaving her and _him_ behind.

He was immaculate. Not a hair out of place or a speck of lint on his sleeve.

He slowed down to her pace.

Even among the passing patients, nurses, and doctors, she felt undeniably alone. She could close her eyes, and all she would see was that red office, a pantheon of his own worship. And just as it would be then, she almost felt the need to sink to her knees, bowing to something superior to her.

Why did he take an interest in her? In Will?

The question had been resting in her mind since that first visit.

They were nothing like him.

He could discuss 18th century symphonies or variations between Impressionist painters of the 19th century. Will and her weren't as cultured. They were the kind that spoke over a glass - _glasses_ \- of alcohol because they had been so maladjusted at socializing to the point where they needed it in order to even share personal information.

"You have yet to make another appointment, Ms. Bennet."

What interest did he have in either of them?

"My apologies." It was said out of courtesy. They both knew the truth. She was scared of him. "I have never been great with talking to-" Anyone. "-doctors."

She didn't look at him. She only stared ahead at Will and Abigail, now seated on a bench, talking quietly among the flowers.

Hannibal wasn't looking at them. He was watching her, that hesitant look in her eyes. He knew it by her brow.

It was a beautiful detail of her face, the brow just below a thin scar. It was a telltale sign of a very significant feeling for her. It was when she was watching someone she cared for, be lost or in pain, but being able to do nothing to help sooth that pain. In those very moments, the fine muscles of her brow would pull into a small arch. It was asymetric of her face, but it held a profound elegance.

This was how closely he watched her.

When she avoided him - and he knew she was avoiding him - he was left to only short moments like this to memorize the details of her existence.

"It doesn't have to be strictly professional."

"I don't understand."

She didn't want to understand.

"You seem troubled. Will has noticed."

She tried not to notice how he let it slip, Will's talking about her in his sessions.

She tried not to be frustrated, but what was the point? Will already noticed.

Even she noticed.

Ever since the visit, she has been more... defensive.

"Old scars opening," she stated, trying to breeze past the subject. Will would have let her go. _He_ wouldn't.

"We could talk about it."

"We _could_."

She didn't want to talk about it. She spent years burying it, and lately, she'd been having to unearth some of it for Will, for Abigail. That didn't mean she wanted to excavate all her skeletons.

"Ms. Bennet," he began. " _Bella_."

There was something about the way he said her name...

"When we last spoke before you left, we agreed to having our next session over dinner. That would require having at least holding a session."

It was as if he were scolding her.

As if he were trying to lead her, guide her, _shape_ her.

Was that what he wanted?

Glancing at Will, she began to understand.

Hannibal was the god of his own existence, but gods were lonely.

That is why he sought them out.

Will could feel him, understand him on a level that anyone would dream of being understood. And her? She supposed she'd proven her own worth, being able to admire, to appreciate the art that he lived in. They were all but gifted to him by Jack.

But it wasn't enough, she realized.

Hannibal didn't want to own them as if they were fine art.

He wanted to elevate them to his level.

He wanted friendship.

Even she couldn't fault him for that.

"Of course. I suppose we could have dinner this weekend. There's this place off of-"

"Oh, no. Ms. Bennet, you misunderstand," he said quickly, wearing a well-crafted smile. There was something pleasant about it. For a moment, for the briefest of moments, she felt proud. "I will be providing dinner."

"Are you sure? I don't want to be a bother."

"Not a bother. Having you for dinner would be a delight."

* * *

 _ **Okay, so its been over a month since I last updated. I kinda felt like you guys didn't enjoy the last chapter as much as you have been, so I got nervous about this chapter (I've re-written it a lot... Like seriously, A LOT). Ultimately, this one has less "action", but I really wanted to**_ ** _focus on building Bella's relationship with Abigail._**

 ** _I think, with Bella, she really struggles between wanting to be like an older sister to Abigail, to be there like her brother was for her, and wanting to teach Abigail to stand alone, so she won't have the trouble she went through when she lost her brother._**

 ** _I also wanted to introduce Freddie..._**

 ** _Anyways, I just wanted to say thanks to all who reviewed for the last chapter, and all who favorited this story. I'm blown away that there's actual people reading this, so my heart goes out to all of you guys._**

 ** _Before I go..._**

 ** _The next chapter will be very Hannibal and Bella-centric in the sense that it will have more of them interacting than it would her and Will. It'll also have more Abigail in it, so if you liked this chapter, maybe you'll like that one too._**

 ** _Who knows?_**


	8. Chapter 8

**All rights to Hannibal (TV) belong to NBC.**

* * *

 _ **The Hobbs Residence, Bloomington, Minnesota**_

Abigail's house was nothing like how she imagined it, yet, at the same time, exactly how she pictured it.

At first glance, it looked to be a one story beige and brown house, but she knew better. Abigail told her about her former home, how, looking from the back, one could see the lower level of the house that followed the hill it rested on.

It was nicer looking than a majority of places she'd lived in, yet, at the same time, there was something lonely about the place, something empty. The grass hadn't been cut since that horrible day, but it hadn't grown much. There were only hints of a dying green among the fallen leaves and mud.

It was dreadful. That was the word replaying in her head. Dreadful. Such dread would have been there, building in her chest, regardless of the large letters scrawled across the front of the house, spelling the word "CANNIBALS".

Turning on her feet, she looked to Abigail holding out a hand for her to hold. It was all she could give.

The second she felt Abigail's slender fingers curl over her hand, grasping onto it tightly, as if it were her very lifeline, Bella felt _it_.

That foreign sense of responsibility. _Parental responsibility_.

There was something else.

Something deeper.

 _Love._

Bella couldn't decide if she should be concerned or comforted by those feelings. It felt strange, neither good or bad, this level of emotion she felt at the sight of Abigail, eyes brimming with tears. She couldn't understand it, not in the way people understood things like art or religion. She couldn't understand what it was or where it came from, only that she would have given anything in the entire world to keep those almost overflowing tears from falling.

When they were about to pass over the front step, Abigail looked down, staring for a moment at the faded rust-colored stain. Bella hadn't been there when it happened, but looking down, she could almost picture Abigail's mother, lying there, dying.

Her eyes stung, overwhelmed by a feeling of terror, trying to imagine the pain Abigail's mother must have felt, not knowing what would happen to her daughter, only that it would be nothing less than terrible. Instinctively, her free hand rose to her chest curling into a fist.

 _If this is what imagining losing a child must feel like. . ._

Closing her eyes, she tried to drown those thoughts.

"Goodbye, mom," she heard Abigail whisper. The words washed over Bella like cold rain, and, opening her eyes, she looked to the younger girl, and found blue eyes staring back at her, hopelessly lost, desperately looking for a familiar face. Bella wondered, briefly, if that is why they fell into place so quickly. Did they look into the other's eyes and found a mirror in the form of another woman?

Abigail took a step closer to Bella, not a foot's width between them. And, in a whisper, she asked, "My family is gone."

There was a graveness in her voice as if finally realizing her new reality.

Abigail was looking to her for help, all but begging Bella to bring her just a shred of comfort. Something- _Anything_ to hold onto.

It wasn't her place.

Bella wanted to shake her head furiously, telling Abigail to look elsewhere, telling her that she was the last person in the world that could give her safety, stability, or security. Yet, when her heart cried out, she gave Abigail's hand a squeeze, and heard herself say, "But you're not alone, Abby." Bella doubted Abigail could ever be alone with her still breathing.

Abigail gave the faintest of smiles, eyes looking of nothing less than gratitude as she opened the door, walking into the dark, still holding Bella's hand. For a moment in time, they both forgot about those that followed them. In the dark, they were alone, but together. There was something oddly alluring about the feeling, a floating comfort in a place that once frightened them both: isolation. So, they lingered in it, but only for a moment.

Abigail lead them through the house, through the rooms that were thoroughly scrubbed clean. As shaky as Abigail was, as fragile as she felt, Bella knew that she had to let her lead, that although she could offer her strength, she had to let Abigail decide what she would do with it. Abigail needed to grow familiar with being in control.

"If you ever want to go, you just have to say so and we'll go."

Alana's words fell unto deafened ears. Abigail simply carried on through a haze of memories into the kitchen. It was Bella's first time seeing it. The table was clean, the counter was spotless, and had the linoleum floor not bared the slightest of stains, Bella would have felt as though she were back in her childhood house. She could even feel her steps become lighter, trying to tread lightly through uncharted waters in fear of falling under the eyes of a mother or father. Her house, this house, it was too clean. Only the most dirty of places could be cleaned as well as it was.

When Abigail's hand slipped from hers, Bella pulled herself from her memories and followed Abigail's gaze to the refrigerator, where all the family pictures on it were turned around. With the hand that once held hers, Abigail traced the edge of the photo as if to contemplate turning it over. Did she truly want to look into the past? What would she look for? What would she find? What would she do with it? What would it do to her?

Bella took a step back, purposeful clumsiness in her knocking an empty trash can over, gaining enough attention to draw Abigail's eyes away. The only one that wasn't convinced of her "accident" was staring straight at her with dark brown eyes. Her doctor, Alana's professor, and Will's. . .

"That isn't supposed to be there."

Abigail seemed to fall back into the past for a moment, moving forward without hesitation, fingers curling around the rim of the trash can, picking it up and looking to the corner of the kitchen. Just when she was about to move it, to put it in the place she'd been taught that it belonged, she stopped, blinking as she wrapped her head around the fact that there was no place it was "supposed to be". Not anymore. There was no proper place for her in this house either.

"Nevermind," she muttered, setting it behind her, not wanting to look at it. There was a moment of silence, one where Bella had enough respect for the girl to not stare. Instead, she cleared her throat, crossing her arms, that same shield coming over her. Bella reminded herself that she didn't owe Abigail anything, that she needed to stop trying to be someone she couldn't.

She told herself that she shouldn't feel that same sense of surrogacy that Will and Hannibal did. She told herself that she made peace with the idea of never having a family. Despite all she told herself, when she stepped away to let Will and Abigail and the two doctors speak, she still felt her heart ache in fear of what would happen if she left Abigail alone for even a short moment. She barely had enough strength to leave the room, to wander off in hopes of being lost.

 _She cannot learn to stand on her own if I am there as a crutch_.

She was betraying her own sentiment, Bella realized as she found the living room. She nearly took a seat on the couch, feeling her panicked heart cry out for relief, but the second her fingers grazed the armrest of the long couch, she stopped. Instead, she looked around the room until finding herself a place to rest, which was leaning on the windowsill, staring out away from the home. She didn't want to see where Abigail grew up. It was too much of a reminder. The last thing she needed was to start having nightmares about her parents cutting her own throat.

She stayed away, for as long as she could, which, in truth, wasn't long. The second Abigail called for her, asking if she'd help her gather the boxes of things that were left behidn, and Bella all too easily came to her aid. She knew better. Abigail was a strong girl, a girl capable of more than others would give her credit for, but she was innocent, so very innocent. She knew that even the most helpless looking of people could do far more than any capable person would seem to be able to do. She had done things far more capable people would be able to do. Still, looking at Abigail, she felt it. A brave sense of dedication, of purpose. It made her question what she was, what more could she be capable of. It was all a beautifully big mess.

Sifting through boxes was easy. It was methodical, systematic, the perfect thing to keep her mind occupied while Abigail sorted through more than what was in the boxes she was looking through. It was a willful blindness, one that came easily with years of practice with keeping her head down and lips shut. She could almost picture herself restocking the pantry at the diner, if not for hearing her name. No one knew her name at the diner. Anonymity was a luxury she could no longer afford.

Looking up from her box, she looked to Abigail, who called her, standing beside another young woman around Abigail's age, staring at her with curious eyes. Bella's eyes flickered from Abigail to Will, to Hannibal, even Alana, looking for a shred of what she'd missed.

"Can you come with us?" Abigail asked, probably for a second time.

Though her brow furrowed slightly, Bella pulled herself to her feet, carefully avoiding the other's eyes as she followed the two out.

She imagined Alana wasn't pleased with the development between them. Abigail was confiding more in her than her therapist. Here Abigail was, inviting her into her personal life, proving the doctor's worries. The only one who would be pleased was Jack.

Dr. Bloom was right about Bella. She wasn't a professional. She wasn't formally trained to look after anyone, let alone a girl like Abigail. She could barely look after herself.

Still, she couldn't help but want to be there.

No matter how many times she told herself to stop, to let Abigail handle herself, she always came when called.

And so, when Alana brought her concerns before Jack the day before leaving, Jack only stared at her for a long minute with his arms crossed. He remained that way, silently contemplating his own mistrust in her until she spoke up. When she did, her voice sounded louder than it usually was, her words more certain. When she offered to become a confidant to the young girl, to do what was best for the girl, Jack and Alana both placed their trust in her. Not much, but enough trust to keep Alana quiet while they left, Abigail's hand taking hers as they stepped beyond the threshold. The only one not looking the slightest bit concerned was Abigail.

The three of them walked slowly, making their way through the backyard, down the hill in an uneven path, Abigail and Bella holding hands. Their closeness felt nothing short of natural, and that in itself made Bella uncomfortable. She tried to slip her hand from Abigail's, in hopes of trailing after the two like an unbothered chaperone, Abigail's hold only tightened. She only let go once they arrived at the edge of a stream that ran like a scar through the yard. Even then, Abigail was reluctant.

The distance she put between them was like that of her mother's whenever she was a child, something that both frightened her and comforted her. It was far enough to give the feeling of privacy whilst being close enough to still invade it.

"Does it hurt?" Marissa asked.

Bella cringed.

"Sometimes."

She didn't need to see Marissa to know the answer didn't satisfy. She could hear the puff of a breath and the sound of leaves shifting beneath Marissa's boots as she tried to redirect the conversation in that same clumsy and haphazard teenage way.

"I thought it was TV," Marissa mentioned with a scoff.

Bella wasn't there, but she didn't have to be. She was familiar with gunfire and cries of terror. How anyone could mistake those sounds for television was beyond her.

"But I was watching Applejack and Twilight and they don't scream like that. And then there was all this shooting."

She heard Marissa imitate the sound of a firing gun. She didn't need to imitate it. It wasn't as though Abigail had forgotten that awful sound.

"Very surreal, very public. Everybody on the block was on the news and then everybody at school. . . Whores."

"They won't let me online."

It was one of the few terms all of Abigail's unofficial keepers agreed upon, and for good reason.

"You don't want to be online. It's all 'The family that preys together stays together.' But it's prey with an E instead of an A because everybody thinks you did it."

Bella noticed how Marissa doesn't exclude herself. Surely, Abigail did as well.

"I read the front of my house."

She could all but see the wry smile on Abigail's face, and her heart broke in two. The girl was bright. She didn't deserve to have her future ripped from her.

"Do you think I did it?"

Abigail's voice was sharper than usual, more anxious, but Marissa didn't pick up on it.

"I don't think you're the type. But I didn't think your dad was the murder-suicide type."

Bella fought the urge to scowl at how casually Marissa spoke of what happened, but how could she understand? At the end of the day, Marissa went home to two parents and a home with her only worry being what she might wear or do the next day. Bella and Abigail hadn't the luxury, yet, at the same time, neither envied Marissa for it. There was something pitiful in how she lived. The lack of death did that to a person. How precious could life be without Death looming over their shoulders?

Bella couldn't dwell on the subject long enough. A man in his mid twenties, curly blond hair, loud eyes, and a strong stride came through the trees. His body, his eyes, his existence seemed, in this very moment, was centered on Abigail, who stood, arms crossed protectively, feet planted firmly, and eyes watching him sharply.

"This is private property," Abigail said quietly. It's then Bella is reminded of how smart the girl is. She wonders if Marissa or the man can see beyond her fragility. She wonders if they know that a broken girl is one of the most dangerous, that Abigail's sharpened edges cut both ways.

"You were the bait," the man said, venom in his voice as he stopped at the other side of the stream. "Is that how it worked? Lure 'em back to daddy for-"

Bella heard Marissa shout at him. She saw the man move sideways, trying to avoid the stone Marissa had thrown. Still, she remained in her place, trying to deafen the voice in her head, the one telling her to stop this man, to step between him and Abigail, to protect her. As much as Bella wanted to take Abigail away from it all, somewhere no one could hurt her, she knew it wasn't for the best. Bella couldn't protect Abigail forever, just as her brother couldn't protect her.

The man continues to spew out hateful accusations and another rock was thrown.

It doesn't miss.

In under a second, the man was bleeding from his forehead, a small gash marring his skin. When he stumbled back, Bella saw the look in his eyes. Clutching his bloodied head, his eyes, that rage, that hatred, that _violence_ , was no longer on Abigail. The murder playing in his eyes is directed at Marissa, and it is then that Bella realized, with a chilling feeling, that she doesn't mind it. She would readily trade Marissa's life for Abigail's. . .

. . . And that terrified her.

When the man turned and ran, Bella only stared, wishing she could have as well.

She felt herself move forward, why she did, she did not know. She didn't know what her intent was. Was it to apologize? Was it to check to see if he was okay? Was it to harm him? She did not know. Before she could see her own actions through, he turned quickly, running into the trees. Briefly, she considered running after him. Her heart, for just a moment, picked up with the desire for it. The chase. Only, this time, things would have been different. This time, she wouldn't be the doe. This time, she would be the hunter.

But she didn't.

It wasn't in her nature to.

She was a runner. At a young age, she learned the first rule of how to run away from someone or something: don't look back.

And that man? He was a runner. She could see it as he ran away. Whatever violence he wanted to ensue, he was running on anger, and anger ran out. Anger never satisified. She knew that all too well.

". . . Bella?"

Blinking twice, her eyes followed the direction of the voice that called her. She turned, just as quickly as the man did, readying to do the thing she did best. To her relief it was Will, looking as tired and worried as ever.

"Are you okay?"

She wondered what she had done to deserve his affection.

With a forced liveliness, she gave her best reassuring smile. Tucking a stray strand of hair behind her ear, she nodded.

"Just startled," she promised.

When she looked in the direction of Abigail, she found _him_.

She noticed the difference in his posture. His chin was raised curiously, his back straight for the most part, but holding the finest of arch backwards, taken by some surprise. Following his gaze, she saw Marissa, arms crossed, glaring at her mother. Bella's lips pressed together, feeling that same anxiety rising in her chest once more. For what, she did not know.

She told herself that she would be his friend. . .

So why did she feel so frightened?

 _ **Motel 6, Bloomington, Minnesota**_

Will lied awake in the dark, staring at Bella, watching her with worried eyes as she twitched in her sleep. He wanted to wake her, but he knew better. She, like him, was riddled with nightmares. Of what, he did not know. She never spoke of them. What little she spoke in her sleep was no less telling than the silence from when she was awake. And, while he wanted to pull her from those nightly terrors, he would be responsible for her lack of sleep afterwards. The most he could do was hold her. And while it would calm her some, she would, every so often, let a shudder, sob, or whine pass her lips. It was a rough thing to watch, but what more could he do? She already had darkening circles under her eyes.

 _Just like me._

Unlike Bella, he had the luxury of waking from his nightmares.

It started out as a dream.

He'd been in a forest. The branches of the trees swayed softly to the crisp morning breeze. He heard the sound of an intake of breath, and when he turned his head, there she was, Abigail. She smiled at him, gently, lovingly, before she pulled her eyes away, scanning the area, listening for something. Anything. Before long, they set off, under a canopy of trees. No set path or destination, only that natural instinct on where to go in hopes of finding something.

And, they did.

She was a natural beauty. A beautiful white tail doe, illuminated by the broken light streaming through the branches, catching in the autumnal mist, with her head down, calmly eating leaves. Quickly, as if noticing their presence, she raised her head, dark eyes peering into his own, unafraid.

She was beautiful.

In under a second, she jumped, taking off at the sound of a gunshot into the forest, darting between trees, terrified.

Will's eyes snapped to Abigail, who had a gun raised, having been aiming for the doe. She was different. Her eyes more sharp as she moved forward, chasing it. Will followed, feeling his heart pounding as soon as Abigail stopped, raising her gun once more. He moved forward, trying to stop her, but she fired before he could.

When he turned his head, heart filled with dread for the poor doe, his stomach twisted at the sight.

Bella.

Lying on the forest floor, clutching an exit wound on her shoulder, bleeding out. Her eyes met his and, this time, all he saw was fear.

It was enough to wake him, jolting from his sleep. He'd been drenched in sweat, breathing heavily.

Bella hadn't woken, but her fist that held onto the front of his shirt tightened. The simple gesture was enough to calm him, to remind him that it was a dream, that she was alive. After that, he couldn't go back to sleep. All he could do was watch her, scared that if he looked away for even a second. . .

He didn't want to relive the nightmare.

When Bella woke, he wasted no time. He peeled off his dampened shirt, shuffled to the bathroom and tried to clean himself up. While in the shower, he scrubbed angrily at his skin, trying to wash the guilt caused by his nightmare away, wondering why he even had such a terror. In the end, he settled on a simple answer: Garrett Jacob Hobbs. Abigail being a hunter, killing innocent women just like he did, was his dream. Will would rather believe that it was the deceased's fault than question the innocence of Abigail.

She didn't deserve his mistrust.

 _ **Minnesota Shrike's Nest,**_ ** _Minnesota_**

He kept an eye on her.

The whole drive, Bella noticed Will's watchful gaze. She didn't know what she had done - _if_ she had done anything. She felt her heart grow heavy, wondering if she said something in her sleep. The more nights they spent together, the more anxious she became. Of why, she wished she knew. She'd like to think that of all the things she'd done, Will would still care for her all the same. Still, she worried.

She tried not to let it get to her.

When they arrived at the cabin, she entered last. She wasn't an official and she wasn't the victim. The last thing she wanted to do was contaminate something. Judging by the look of the cabin, she knew it wouldn't be hard.

"Everything," Abigail said, dragging her finger along a table, looking at dust that was collecting. "He cleaned everything," she clarified, her eyes taking in the room. Her brows furrowed and she blinked furiously, not wanting to cry. "He said he was afraid of germs," she scoffed.

Bella averted her gaze. She'd used that excuse before. Before she settled down, she'd stayed at her fair share of cabins. Every few days, she would clean, rigorously, and if anyone asked it was because of that very reason. "Don't like the idea of things being dirty. I don't have enough money to afford getting sick," she'd told others if asked. To them she was just a small, poor, paranoid woman. She understood the lie all too well.

Moving away from the others, just as she had in the house, she took it upon herself to look around. And, like in the house, she found herself a shadow.

Hannibal.

"Come here often?" she asked quietly. There was a humorous tone to her voice, a slight upturn of her lips, one she expected him to return, but he didn't. Not for a moment, at least.

"No," he answered, his lips tugging upwards as he moved forward.

Instinctively, she took a few steps backwards, but stopped as soon as she realized what she'd done.

"Why aren't you with them?" she asked, looking over his shoulder, nodding towards Abigail, Alana, and Will.

"Do you often see yourself as separated from others?" he asked, avoiding her question.

As much as she wanted to give a sigh or roll her eyes, not being in the mood, ever, to discuss herself.

"It's the human plight, I suppose," Bella answered, fighting the urge to dig her nails into the wooden table she leaned against. "We tend to do that. See other people as 'us' or 'them'."

"You do not see yourself as 'us'?" he asked, curiosity sparking in his eyes.

"You don't."

To that, he smiled.

The smile was short lived, however.

She felt it. A drop falling onto her cheek.

Out of habit, she wiped at it, expecting it to be a broken pipe or something along those lines. To her horror, when she looked at her hand, at her fingertips, she saw red. For a brief moment, she stared in disbelief. Slowly, she looked upwards as another drop fell, this time hitting her bottom lip. She turned her head down, but not before she'd seen it.

Blood.

With widened eyes, she raised her head, looking to Hannibal. She knew what she wanted to see. She wanted to see his eyes sharp, worried even. Instead, his eyes were no less relaxed than before. The only tension in his face was in a single brow, pulling into a refined arch. Perfection, as always. In all humanity's desire for perfection, it was times like this when Bella wondered whether it was worth it. Where was his surprise? Where was his worry? Where was those feelings that made the heart beat a little faster? Where were the feelings that made them human?

She averted her gaze once more.

She didn't want to look. She didn't want to find an unusual absence of emotion. For all her mistrust, Bella didn't want to see Hannibal Lecter's faults, and his greatest of all faults that she has seen? A lack of fault. How strange it was to look unto a man, a man with no faults as far as the eye could see, and feel nothing less than discomfort.

All these thoughts, all these feelings, only rose in a matter of seconds. That was his effect. Standing before him was enriching. She couldn't recall a time when she didn't feel less than four emotions simultaneously whilst he was around.

"I'll get Abigail out of here," she said quietly, taking a step away. She kept her head down as she walked back towards Will, Alana, and Abigail, bringing her hand to her face, gently dragging her pinkie along her bottom lip. Those three were all too familiar with the sight of it.

"Will." Her voice was louder than usual, more solid. Instantly, he stood straighter, blue eyes sharp, just as she wished Hannibal's had been. "Hannibal has something," she said in a lower voice, still loud enough for Alana and Abigail to hear, but quiet enough for them to know that she was speaking to him and him alone.

Will hesitated. Worried eyes flickering to their Dr. Lecter and then to her. Briefly, his eyes fell on Abigail. Bella noticed how quick he was to look away. As much as she wanted to ask, she knew better.

"What'd he find?" Abigail asked slowly, her eyes following Dr. Bloom and Will as they moved, slowly, anxiously.

Bella moved in front of her, blocking her view.

"Let's wait outside."

Abigail frowned, her eyes flashing to Bella with a look of slight anger.

"I thought you said you'd never hide things from me."

Bella pursed her lips for a moment, partially regretting that promise. Still, she held her ground. She wouldn't lie to Abigail. She wouldn't.

"There's blood."

The color drained from Abigail's face, and quickly, almost instantly, she moved forward, almost running towards the stairs that Will, Alana, and Hannibal had gone up. Just as fast, if not faster, Bella's hand shot out, grasping onto Abigail's arm, stopping the girl. Abigail's head snapped in her direction, blue eyes almost blinded by her own fear of the action.

Bella should have known better. She shouldn't have grabbed her so quickly, so tightly, so... demandingly.

With an apology resting on her lips, she loosened her grip on Abigail's wrist, bringing her free hand to the girl's face, gently resting it on her pale, freckled cheek. Her fingertips were cold on Abigail's warm cheek, and, for a moment, she nearly lost herself in the gesture. She always cherished these moments, those sweet moments where she felt what she could only describe as a maternal instinct. However, just as quickly as she felt it, she was reminded of all the reasons she was was ill-suited for any of it.

"Abigail."

There was something in the way she said it. She heard it as soon as the name passed her lips.

Something gentle, yet stern.

All at once, all Abigail's defiance washed from her eyes. Soon after, she nodded, yielding to Bella's command, and lead the way out.

It left a foul taste in Bella's mouth.

It was in the way Abigail changed. It was like magic. Bella spoke the words, held intent, and made a change. But she didn't want it. She didn't want it because it was the very cruel change that she used to fall under.

She felt her blood run cold at the thought of becoming like that woman.

Quickly, she tried banishing the thoughts. She told herself that she wouldn't become like her mother, that she wouldn't let herself.

In a matter of minutes, Bella found herself and Abigail sitting outside, sat still, knees drawn to her chest, arms around her legs, resting her head her shoulder. _She's a child_ , Bella thought with a heavy heart. _She is a child with no home, with no family, with no one to trust._

As much as Bella wanted to say that Abigail could trust her, she doubted that she could even trust herself. Already, she had exercised some hold over the girl. Already, she had proven herself unworthy of being on an equal footing. How can anyone consider themselves equal when holding power over the other? The thought brought a sickening feeling to her stomach, and, soon enough, she, like Abigail, kept her head down with a heavy frown on her lips. She never imagined life to be this way. She never imagined that she would ever care for anyone as much as she cared for Abigail and for Will. She never thought she would have to feel so impossibly inadequate because of it.

All she wanted to do was help, and all she could do was wait.

Plucking at the grass, Bella heard the sound of sirens, coming from the distance. It was the first time she felt relaxed by the sharpened noise. Abigail and her had been waiting for over an hour, trying every way to be together without acknowledging the other person. On the occasional simultaneous glance, Bella would be the one to look away, feeling unworthy. What made matters worse was Abigail's yearning expression, so hurt by being ignored. Bella wanted nothing more than to shower the girl in affection, to hold her and give her the safe place to grow that she was denied, that they were both denied, but she couldn't. She couldn't trust herself to be the person Abigail needed.

 _Maybe Alana was right._

Closing her eyes, raising her head, facing the clouds, she tried to take in warmth, any source of comfort, from the hidden sun. All she could feel was that cold and wet breeze rolling through the forest. Her face twitched, fighting the urge to frown, to let her expression crumble into despair over all she wanted yet could not have.

Soon enough, she didn't have to fight the urge. Soon enough, the cabin was flooded with police cars and officers. Soon enough, Jack Crawford came, providing the perfect distraction.

Jack Crawford, for all his faults, was a good commander. The second his shoes touched the dying grass, Bella could feel herself tense up. She sat straighter until he drew close enough for her to stand. It was the first time she felt right near him. The first time she stood with purpose before him. It was the way he looked at her, without suspicion, but almost familiar. Almost as if she were a part of his team, a soldier to his army fighting for that sweet justice that she and so many others were robbed of.

"Where's Will?"

There was no hesitation with Jack Crawford.

"Inside. Upstairs."

That was all he needed.

With a strong stride, Jack went on, leaving the two of them behind, telling them to ask any one of the other officers for a ride back to the house.

When Jack found Will Graham and Hannibal Lecter, the two were standing before the body. Will standing close, just as he always did, and Hannibal, like a guardian, a few paces back, watching. Jack, for all that he urged Will to dig close, always felt this pang of guilt. Alana's words, asking him not to let him get to close echoed in his head as Will examined the naked corpse's swollen lips.

It was times like these when Jack remembered Miriam Lass.

 _ **The Hobbs Residence, Bloomington, Minnesota**_

They had gotten back to the house early.

Bella couldn't have been more thankful.

Staring out the window, she had a taste of what Abigail felt: pure, unadulterated violation. She couldn't feel a sliver of privacy as the lights of cameras and police lights danced through the windows. It was madness outside. A terrible circus of news reporters, police officers, and strangers all trying to catch a glimpse of their new obsession, their new scapegoat for all the cruel things that were going on in the world: the daughter of a cannibal. Quickly, she snapped the blinds closed again, turning her back to it all. She couldn't afford to get lost in it all, not when Abigail needed her.

The poor girl was shaken.

Bella couldn't help but clench her jaw and dig her nails into the palms of her hands as she remembered the voices of those reporters that arrived before the rest of the police.

 _"Abigail-" "Did you know you were a cannibal?" "Abigail-" "Anything to say to the families of your father's victims?" "Abigail-" "Did your father feed you those girls?" "Abigail-"_

Of all the things she'd endured, never had she felt that level of craze. It was the definition of being thrown to the sharks, surrounded by hungry and bloodthirsty animals.

Abigail hadn't made it out unscathed. Sitting on the couch, crying quietly, terribly exhausted after the news of the body in her father's cabin belonging to Marissa, Abigail looked to her. Her big blue eyes were now red, puffy, and shimmering witth fresh tears. Furiously, she wiped at her nose, turning her gaze away, an apology resting on her lips.

It broke Bella's heart.

"Abby," Bella whispered, face breaking into sympathy as she moved across the room. Abigail, out of habit moved aside, making room on the couch. Like so many times before, Bella took her place beside her. The difference in this time was slipping her arms around the girl, holding her tightly. "It'll be okay... It'll be okay..."

Abigail's hands grasped onto her arms in an attempt to pull her closer. This was what Abigail needed. Whether it was true or not, she needed to feel that there was hope. Bella came this far on hope alone. She would too.

"It'll be okay," Bella murmured once more. Again and again, she would say it, repeating it until she felt Abigail relax.

When Abigail stilled, when Bella could feel the beating of her heart slow, she slipped from behind her, replacing the comfort of her own body with that of a handmade pillow. For a moment, she stared at the young girl, and again she felt that maternal pang. It made little sense. She wasn't old enough to even mother a child of Abigail's age. She never even showed a desire for children. Yet, she felt guilt at moving. Shaking her head, confused by what she knew was best and what she wanted, she walked toward the bathroom. Once inside, she went straight to the sink. She turned on the faucet, and with cold water, she splashed her face, trying to wash away either the memories of her parents and the fear of ruining a child or washing away this desire to be like a mother. This cognitive dissonance was maddening.

Looking at the mirror, into her reflection, she felt comfort.

She could still do it. She could leave at this very second, disappearing into the night. She could get on a bus, leave this life behind and find a new diner, a new strange and abandoned place to hide away in. When she turned to the door, she took one strong step, but stopped. She couldn't.

She built a life. A new life.

It was something she never imagined having again, yet, here she was. This life of hers, staring her down with eyes so loud, telling her that she could not leave. She could not leave and find the kind of warmth that she found in the arms of Will Graham or the purpose she felt while holding Abigail Hobbs. She didn't find her brother, but she did find a family.

How could she ever leave that behind?

Before she could resign to this new truth, she heard Dr. Bloom calling from downstairs. Quickly, she hurried towards the stairs with the intent to stop Alana before she woke Abigail. That's when she heard a loud _thunk_. Her legs stilled. Her blood chilled. All at once, she fell into an old habit. Turning on her feet, she nearly took off back towards the bathroom, ready to lock herself inside before escaping through the window. And then she remembered Abigail, and just as quickly, she turned back around, and rushed downstairs only to find _him_.

"Hannibal," she whispered, eyes wide with surprise at the sight of a now unconscious Alana Bloom on the ground before an all too calm Dr. Lecter. He, just as unbothered as before, raised his eyes to her. He didn't speak. He didn't need to. She knew right away what to do. And she did it. She went back to the bathroom and locked herself inside.

She didn't go out the window.

She didn't flee.

She sat there.

She sat on the edge of the tub, thinking, wondering what had happened. She told herself to stop, to not ask questions. It went against her conditioning. It went against the rules she made for herself, the rules that had kept her alive so far. She whispered those rules softly, saying, "Keep your head down, don't ask questions, stay invisible."

When she heard loud noise from the opposite side of the door, she stood, half wanting to call after Abigail, desperate to know if she was safe. Instead, she bit the inside of her bottom lip and sat back down, burying her face in her hands, frustrated. It had been far too long since she'd experienced this: this torture of wanting to do something, say something, and being able to do neither.

This whole trip was a terrible idea. If anyone had any sense, they would have stopped Jack Crawford's plan in its infancy. Why would returning to this awful place help anyone? The dead were gone. There was nothing they could do for them. Their families would never get closer, bodies or no bodies. Their justice would never be taken. Not without costing Abigail her own. All of it was falling apart, and it had only been two days.

There was no clock. There was no sun. She couldn't tell if she was there for minutes or hours. She was stuck in a room without time until she heard loud noise again. This time the door swung open, and a terribly messy Will Graham stood in the doorway for a mere second before she was in his arms. She couldn't tell who moved first, her or him or maybe they both had. Either way, she found herself holding him tightly, and him holding her.

The relief only lasted a moment before she pulled away, asking what happened.

Will looked over his shoulder, as if he could see what was going on outside, as if he could have seen all that she willfully made herself blind to.

"Nicholas Boyle. He attacked Abigail, Alana and Dr. Lecter."

Lie. She knew it the moment he said it. . . _and she did nothing._

She almost had the nerve to wonder who lied, but she knew it the moment he said it. When she saw Alana Bloom at Hannibal's feet, Nicholas Boyle was no where in sight.

It wasn't like him either.

He was a runner.

"He must've locked you in the bathroom. They're dusting for prints right now."

She knew who locked her in the bathroom.

"And Abigail?" she asked, trying to quell her discomfort for her own lack of caring for Hannibal's lie.

"He took Abigail back to the hotel. Alana's outside in the ambulance."

She didn't ask about Alana.

When she said nothing, calming visibly at the knowledge that Abigail was okay - as okay as she could be - Will looked at the ground, then at the door with a level of uncertainty that he'd been showing for the past day. Half of her wanted to ask, but she'd done enough of that. If he wanted her to know, he would tell her.

The answer came unspoken, told through his hesitance when it came to taking her hand, leading her downstairs and out the door.

They were almost to a car when Jack Crawford stepped into their path, eyes wide, brows furrowed, lips curled with frustration.

"Where are you going?"

Will only pulled her to the side, walking around him.

"I'm tired, Jack. We're going home."

 _Home_.

 _ **Will Graham's House, Wolf Trap, Virginia**_

For the second day in a row, Will Graham woke up with Bella Bennet in his arms. For a second night in a row, he had a nightmare.

This time he had been standing outside his house, the very one he all but fled to. It was dark, so dark that the only light he could find was coming from the house. He was close enough to make out a figure. _Her_ _figure_. He could see her, walking through the house, the faint echo of dogs happily barking rang in his ears. It was a happy scene, one that he found himself walking towards until he heard a branch snap. All at once, he turned his head and he found himself looking straight into the dark eyes of a large black stag. It walked, with heavy yet quiet steps through the meadow towards him. He held his breath, feeling his heart swell with anticipation at the beastly creature. Yet, the stag stopped, just out of arms length, staring at him. When Will turned, looking for something, anything else that the stag could be looking at, he found that everything had changed.

He could see himself.

He was holding her.

Abigail.

He held a knife to her throat. Though horrified by what he was doing, his self, his other self, looked as calm as could be. And with an unprecedented tenderness, he saw himself hold a struggling Abigail and whisper into her ear, "I'm sorry. . . Abigail, please just hold still. . . Please. . . I'm going to make it all go away. . . I'll make it all okay. . ."

Will did nothing but watch as his other self cut Abigail's throat. Before the drops of blood hit himself, his real self, he woke at the awful trill of his alarm, covered in sweat. His final jolt startled Bella awake, causing her to pull herself into a sitting position, eyes frantically searching the room, only before settling on him, and relaxing. She slunk down, lying against him once more, resting her head over his dampened chest. He would have felt embarrassed at his sweatiness had he not woken from a nightmare seconds before. Holding her head, his calloused, shaking fingers slipping into her hair, was a comfort. He could feel his heart beating heavily against her ear.

He was alive.

He was awake.

He was okay.

He felt Bella draw in a deep breath, a question resting on the edge of her lips, but she said nothing, just as he said nothing of her own nightmares.

She wanted to ask. He wanted to ask. Neither did.

Neither said a word as the time ticked by, but eventually he caved. Yet, the question that passed his lips wasn't about her nightmares.

"Is this your home?" He asked, blinking twice as he realized he'd said it aloud.

There was silence.

"What do you mean?" he heard her ask. Though her voice was soft and quiet, he knew that the tiredness of the morning was long gone.

He thought about telling her to forget about it. Though neither would, he knew Bella. She would pretend, trying to give him the peace of mind of not thinking that he ruined the peace between them. But he didn't take it back. He didn't take it back because he wanted to know. He wanted to know if the one good part of his dream rang true. He wanted to know if his hope would be reality.

"This place, I know it's not much, but. . . this place, for me, it's safe. It's solid. In all the craze that goes on at work, when I'm here, it doesn't follow - for the most part," he added, trying not to remember the black stag and the nightmare it brought. "I've just been thinking. . ." How long had he he seen her this way? How long had he pictured his home with her in it? "When I think of home, you're. . . you're there." He closed his eyes, not wanting to see her as her head raised. He couldn't meet her gaze and risk seeing her rejection.

"Will," he heard her say softly. Her body shifted. He felt her cool finger tips against his cheek, drawing them over his cheekbones. "Will, please," she whispered. Unable to stop himself, he opened his eyes and met those warm brown eyes. There was a slight tension in her eyes. He couldn't tell how to take it. Her eyes flickered to his lips, and without needing to hear her, he answered her call, leaning forward into her kiss. He couldn't help but wonder if it was a goodbye, if she would pull away and leave, running back to that small apartment and see him again only at work - if she would even return to work. She was like a ghost. How easy she could vanish, answering to no one except her own will. . .

"Will," she whispered again in between her kisses. Never had he loved his name as much as he had when she said it. "Will," she said one last time before she pulled away. Almost instinctively, he leaned forward, not wanting to say goodbye. "Of course my home is with you."

Her eyes were searching his own, looking for whatever possessed him to ask the question.

Will heard his laugh before he realized his own relief wash over him. Her lips lifted into a smile, her eyes brightening with surprise as she felt his hand, still resting on the back of her head, pull her closer until their lips met once more. It began gentle, as it always had, but there was an eagerness to it, a lively and effervescence breathe filling their lungs. Her laughter, delighted by this new side of him.

For a moment, it was just them. Just Will and Bella. Nothing more.

Everything that happened, everything that would happen, was background noise.

It was the closest to normal that either of them knew.

He'd rolled over, to where she was lying on her back, to where he was gazing down at her, at this woman who made him feel. . . _alive_.

"Move in with me," he said, catching his breath. Her reddened cheeks lost some of their color as she realized what he'd said.

" _What?_ "

"Move in with me," he repeated, his bold smile softening. It was the first thing he'd said in a long time that felt right. No worries, no wrongs. It was right. It was strong. It was true. "You're here all the time. You think of it as home. Why not move in?"

She stared, for half a second before that same smile bloomed on her face. He knew her answer.

"What about Jack?" she asked, as if she hadn't already decided. Will chuckled, leaning in and kissing her one more time before rolling back to his side and pulling himself off the bed. _Their bed_.

"What about him?" He asked as he pulled off his shirt.

"Is there a 'non-fraternization' policy or something?" As if she were afraid of breaking a rule. "Moving in would make things official. . ."

"According to Freddie Lounds, I'm not a real agent. At best, we're consultants," he reminded her, a scoff leaving him. Still the smile rested on his lips. "Besides," he began again, stopping as he reached the hallway. "Jack already knows about us."

"What? Not that I'm too surprised, but how?" she asked, sitting up, her fingers habitually curling into the bed sheets. The sight gave him what he could only describe as pride. She had made herself at home long before he asked.

"He asked where Abigail was yesterday night."

"She was in her hotel," Bella remembered.

"I told him that," Will assured. "He asked where I was and I told him."

"With me?"

"With you."

He didn't fail to notice her small smirk before he turned, continuing down the hall.

"Where are you going?" she called after him. He didn't need to see her to know she was smiling.

"To shower and get dressed."

"For?"

"Breakfast. Unless you feel like cooking," he added smiling.

There was silence.

"I'll get dressed!"

It was a happy moment. A happy memory. A happy day.

It was their peace before the storm.

* * *

 _ **So it's been over a month. For that, I apologize.**_

 _ **It's just, I've started university and I had writer's block. I mean, hell, I'm not sure how I feel about this chapter, but I did feel like ending on a happy note.**_

 _ **I know I said at the end of the last chapter that it would be Hannibal and Bella centric, but I did want to stay on track on the show a bit longer. I promise that the next chapter will be them! After all, she still has a dinner with him!**_

 _ **This chapter was mainly to show the development with Abigail. I really wanted Abigail to have a slightly-moderately different pace. I like to think that Bella, in all her love and care, would want to mother her, to protect her, but prepare her, and she's really struggling with those feelings. I also wanted to end with her and Will because this is different from the show. In this little alternate universe, Will isn't as alone, and I wanted to show that. This is not to say that there won't be struggle and tension. After all, Hannibal Lecter is still in this story.**_

 _ **I wanted to thank all of you who reviewed. I had a bad case of writer's block, but I wouldn't have pulled through if not for you (Special thanks to MariDark and to**_ ** _.927, Sanja, MopingBlues, CC, Twelia, Ghouly_** ** _-Girl_** ** _vanessaserrato,_** ** _CaptainMc, and_** ** _paninihead!)._**

 ** _I'm hoping I didn't disappoint with this chapter, and I hope that you'll continue to stick with me._**

 _ **FINAL NOTE**_

 ** _Reviews truly help me with writing - I have this feeling that since they slowed that people didn't like it, so I was also anxious about writing again which kinda prolonged the time I spent writing and rewriting..._**

 ** _So please, don't be shy, drop me a review. I always love hearing your thoughts, feelings, and questions._**


	9. Chapter 9

**All rights to Hannibal (TV) belong to NBC.**

 **This chapter is dedicated to Anna B. and** **MariDark.**

 **Also, special thanks to Mara-Lethe, Random Person 94, CaptainMc, and Sanja**

 **PS: I remade the cover!**

* * *

 _I love how you guys are noticing the different dynamic and noticing that Hannibal notices her somewhat primal urges! I really hope that Bella isn't coming off as a flat character because humans themselves are complex creatures capable of feeling a multitude of things. And with Bella - with everyone on this show, really - there is always this feeling of dissonance._

 _As to her not being a part of the FBI, I really wanted to get this outsider perspective because I feel like Jack and his team have this strength, this sense of invulnerability and unanimity and I don't... I want to convey a character that doesn't have that. I wanted to create a character that is rough and strong, but also holds this fragility and anxiety in her._

 _Speaking of anxiety, I hope that this chapter clarifies why she feels that way and why Hannibal is taking an interest in her._

 _Also, for anyone who has good memory or has recently read this, there is a surprise in store._

* * *

 ** _Port Haven Psychiatric Facility, Baltimore, Maryland._**

The ground was covered in golden fallen leaves sprawled over the elegant stone path to the garden. As she carefully tread over the path, out of the corner of her eyes, in between worn in stone pillars, were faces. Old men and women in wheelchairs or clutching their walkers or the arms of one of the staff members. Off in the distance, there were the younger ones, girls she's had to sit in front of and pretend as though she had a sliver of something in common. The sight made her cringe. It was as though life were taunting her with images of what could have been. Instead of being in a park with friends and family, she was in a hospital with her therapist. It left a sour taste in her mouth and thickened air in her lungs, wondering why her father was the way he was. What had she done to make him hate her? What had she done to trigger such a terrible bloodlust in him? What had she done to deserve the scar on her neck?

Her only thanks towards her father was that he didn't give her a larger scar.

"I can hide what happened to me," she said to Alana, glancing at the doctor from the corner of her eyes, taking in her casual pace. "I can hide what happened to me. All I need is a scarf to pass. Or a turtleneck, the right high collar."

She learned that from Bella along with how to cut and die her hair as quickly as possible. She learned to carry a small tube of concealer, and a sufficient amount of cash, but not enough to sound alarms. Though, she wouldn't tell Alana that. Already, there was enough distance between the two of them. Half out of guilt of what transpired in her house, half out of mistrust she already held towards the woman.

"Part of the process of recovery. And hiding what happened to you defeats the purpose of being here. Sharing will help normalize," Alana insisted, using that same motherly tone.

Abigail only scowled at that.

"What happened to you isn't normal."

She was never normal.

"I just mean-"

"Some of these women aren't even sharing," Abigail snapped, not letting Alana finish. "They speak in little girl voices telling everyone what was done to them and how they hurt without saying a word about it." How many times did she sit in a circle and was forced to listen to the lot of them, trying to swallow her own resentment.

"Certain traumas can arrest vocal development. It's not always voluntary-"

"I know."

She didn't mean to be short with Alana. She hated how Alana spoke to her. There was something in her voice, something gentle as if speaking to a child, yet suspicious as if she caught her in a lie.

"It just makes me want to go home and be normal again," she said, rolling her eyes at the thought and how far away from reality it was.

Still, Alana was her doctor, and things typically moved faster the more she told her how she felt.

"Have they sold my house already?" She asked, not bothering to meet Alana's eyes.

Yesterday was been her mother's birthday. In another life, she would be climbing Eagle Mountain, the highest point in Minnesota, to celebrate. In another life, she'd be staring out at Lake Superior, drinking in the sweet and fresh air of the summit. She couldn't even imagine it now. Not for long, at least.

"You'll have another home. I'll help you find it." Abigail didn't call it her home. "Abigail-" She almost rolled her eyes at that tone. "I want you to give the support groups another chance."

For a moment, she was a teenager again, complaining about something she didn't want to do.

"No. The support groups are sucking the life out of me through a narrow straw."

"Isolating yourself can suck just as hard and through an even narrower straw. You have to find someone to relate to in this experience."

"I already have."

 ** _Hannibal Lecter's House, Baltimore, Maryland._**

From the time she left the house until the second he opened the door, she ran on shallow breathes without knowing it. She only realized this when, upon entering, her first deep breath was overwhelmed with a sweet, yet savory aroma. The next deafened sense was her eyes, blinded by the sheer opulence of his home. Everything was so clean, so renewing, a tabeleau of a secret era that would live and die with him and the few he chose to share it with. For a moment, she was filled with wonder, brown eyes wide with awe, drowning in shades of purple, red, and cobalt. Everything was planned, organized. From while molding across the tops of the room, forming subtle and timeless arches decorated with various plants and paintings in some sort of artificial environment. On the eastern wall of the dining room, she found herself planted before a display of a tamed flora herb wall, set before a a wallpaper - Oscar Grosch, she recognized.

Every inch was enriched with colors and textures, both elegant and exotic. She could feel the very tension in her shoulder lessen at the sight of the flowers. Beyond that, to the southern wall, there was a display of feathers, butterflies, and beetles. She almost missed the pleased smile resting on his lips at her admiration of his home.

For a second, she wondered why she was so reluctant to gravitate towards him, but then she saw him up close. When her eyes met his, she felt her own smile falter. It wasn't so much his smile but rather how much she wanted that smile to remain. There was something about him, his strange personal manners that set him apart from the others. He was both brilliant, almost effortlessly in tune with the world around him, and beautiful, put together from the metal cuff links on his sleeves to the finishing touches on his dress shoes. She always assumed that his home would carry this cold and serene air similar to a funeral, yet she was wrong. With soft piano music playing, beautiful art and nature around her, the smell of warm food, she felt anything but cold and serene. No. For once, around him, she felt almost enlightened.

And that is what made her wary.

She came to dinner with an open mind, yet the second she found herself drawn in, the second she realized it, she hesitated.

"Are you hungry?"

"Famished."

He seated her near the head of the table, to his left, where she was left to take in her surroundings more under the spotlight of a black Murano glass chandelier. It was breathtaking, though she dared not say it, not even whisper it while alone, waiting for him to present her dinner. His dining room, however beautiful, was a re-natured nature. It was an illusion of a natural environment. All of this, from the herbs on the wall to the wood in the fireplace, was controlled.

When he reentered the room, she noticed something she hadn't when she walked in. His coat. On every other occasion she had seen him, he was dressed, adorned in a sharply tailored and well coordinated suit, yet here he was.

Unlike all previous memories, he stood, dressed simply in a cream, pin-striped button down shirt covered by a brown vest and a pair of slightly lighter brown slacks. It was almost casual, considering who he was. She wondered if she would have underestimated him, if she would have trusted him a little more, had he been dressed this way when they first met. She wondered if this was intentional. Looking beyond him, at the wall behind him, the color of it, the indigo that matched the night's sky without appearing as empty, she knew.

Of course, it was intentional.

They unintentionally mirrored each another.

She did not miss the surprised, yet pleased look on his face when she entered.

Looking at her as he placed a porcelain plate before her, he noticed just how well she blended into her environment.

When he welcomed her into his home, he offered to take her coat, a worn in olive green jacket, he took the opportunity to circle her thereafter under the guise of hanging it. She came to him in a modest dress of a soft pink. Not long, but not entirely short, ending just below her knees. The neckline was deeper than he ever saw her wear, diving only about to where the center of her heart was. Whilst she could have hidden the area with a necklace or cardigan, she left the area bare.

She was so much like she had been the last time they were alone, yet entirely different.

She still held her distant nature. He could see it in the way her fingers laced together, squeezing tightly whenever he drew too near. Yet, she kept herself still, forcing herself to appear calm, content, and comfortable. The sight of her, a gentle smile on her lips as she gazed up at him in the second the plate was placed before her - he wanted nothing more than to capture it.

Her brown eyes were wide and aware. They were beautiful in a classical way. Not demure or chaste, but rather. . . _alive_. Her lips mostly relaxed, parted with an unheard breath passing through them, yet there was tension in the bottom lip. Not quite a smile, but close. The way the light came down, cascading onto her features, the faint scarring on her softened face, catching in the colors of her hair and the smooth and cool fabric of her dress, matched with the glimmer of an equally luxurious golden and rose porcelain, she looked to be every bit the woman she was when she was in his office, leaning against the wooden railing, looking down from the upper floor.

How perfect she looked. The epitome of intelligence and sensibility.

He felt it then.

It was a kindred urge, similar to that he felt when sitting across from Will Graham in his office. It was this near compulsion to create. With Will, he saw someone who could see him, understand him. It was a tempting idea, to expand beyond such a bleak and lonely existence, to take on a companion. Yet, despite all he could do to lead Will to the river, to tempt him so much to drink from a new and near-forbidden existence, Hannibal could not make him enjoy it. This was the downfall of empathy. One could empathize with his greatest of enemies, yet that does not make them less of adversaries. But with her? She was something different.

Though she could not see through his eyes, she could see him. She, who held a heart so worn in, yet new all the same, could be crafted, sculpted, the tableau of his own design.

It was tempting, and what made matters all the better was that the two had paired off, a lovely set to finish his collection.

"I am somewhat surprised to reach this point," he said, taking his rightful place at the head of the table. His hands reaching, claiming a knife and a fork with them. "Bella _._ " He enjoyed saying her name, the familiarity of it.

Bella blinked twice, somewhat understanding, somewhat confused.

"Twice, officially, we have prolonged this," he stated, an amused smile playing on his lips, telling her he was not truly upset with her. The first, he could hold against her. The second was entirely due to Jack Crawford's insistence on Abigail Hobbs returning home. While they could have dined there, as she so kindly pointed out, he refused for their first shared meal to be by anyone but him.

"This?" Bella repeated, feigning innocence in her voice.

"Therapy over dinner," he humored her with.

The right corner of her lip twitched upwards, but she didn't spare him a glance, instead focusing on taking a sip of her wine.

"This isn't simply dinner?"

"Dinner would be asking less of you."

"You would never ask for less," she pointed out, taking another drink. She had yet to cut into her dinner, but he dared not point it out. He wanted it to be her decision. He needed it to be her decision.

On some level she knew this.

Her plate was made up of a salad of greens and root chips and slices of meat - "Rare roast tenderloin", he called it. On the right hand side of the salad was a bird skull - purely decorative, she assumed. What truly caught her interest was half of a pomegranate at the center of the plate; its bright seeds almost appeared as rounded rubies spattered over the tenderloin and resting in the heart of the pomegranate.

She thought to ask if it was often served this way, or if it was purely his design.

She knew better.

This was her invitation.

Watching her examine the dish, dark lashes cloaking those warm and sweet brown eyes as she blinked slowly, Hannibal felt an excitement rise, wondering if she understood, and, when those very eyes rose to meet his gaze, as her lips bloomed with a smile as soft as a rose petal, he knew. Here was a woman, so bright and young, everything a woman from stories was painted to be, yet she was cloaked in this dark smoking shroud of fear. Her ability to so easily recognize and capture the world, the people, around her all out of fear gave her a beauty that he could only describe as sublime.

Fear was her shield.

She was so accustom to it, that intense and overwhelming sense of fear, that it did not touch her in the way it touched others. If it had, she would be different. That brightness about her, that effervescent youth that he and those watching close enough would bare witness to, all of it would be gone if that darkness could touch her in the way it touched others. No. He came to the understanding that she and him were similarly different, just as she and Will were similarly different.

She needed to invite him in, just as he needed to invite her.

So he watched, almost hungrily, drinking in the sight as she lifted a bite of that rare roasted tenderloin, sprinkled with the forbidden fruit, to her lips.

She accepted.

He smiled, feeling like a conqueror, feasting his eyes on unknown lands, knowing that greatness lied ahead.

"Shall we start on a lighter topic?" he asked, courteous as always. She didn't answer verbally, only giving a shrug. He would have to teach her differently. "Work, perhaps," he prompted, knowing full well about her workplace actions through one Will Graham. Although, he only knew the surface of her actions. Will never betrayed her trust. It was frustrating to say the least, yet, here he was, trying to overcome that frustration, using it as an incentive to collect them both, to pay just as much attention to one as he did to the other, not wanting to lose a second of either. They were rare wild animals, every second of beauty was a gift to the watcher.

"Work is a light topic?" she asked, bitterness dripping from her voice. Her eyes winced with regret at the sharpness of her voice. "Sorry," she muttered. "Work is a sensitive topic," she clarified, giving him a slightly scolding look. "I would assume you knew that."

"Therapy sometimes requires stimulating the sensitive."

"Sometimes," she echoed, returning to eating. "I had to recuse myself from the current case," she offered him, yielding little by little. She was a difficult one at times. These small instances where she struggled against him served as a reminder that she could be so much more than she was. She could be more than the lot that she stood with.

"Care to share why?" He expected a short "no" and end of discussion. He would have spent the night trying to draw out anything else he could from her, building a friendship for their next dinner to be more successful.

"Yes."

He blinked, only allowing such a small amount surprise to show. When her smile came, he knew she caught it.

"It's not easy to talk about."

Nothing ever seemed to be with her. She and all her vulnerability were lost in a sea of tall trees. He could draw her out, but she would slip away. No. She had to come out on her own, reveal herself on her own.

"No doubt that Will has told you about it," she said, not wanting to relive the moment she walked - _fleeing_ from that house with the second murdered family and the charred body of a missing boy. Her ears fell deaf to people, mostly Jack, shouting at her. She was falling into instinct, and the second she felt someone's fingers graze the fabric of her jacket, she broke into a run. It wasn't until Will caught her by the arm that she stopped, if only to whip around and throw his grasp off. She remembers Will's worried expression, the complete terror in his eyes. She knew she must have looked mad, eyes wide and dilated, looking to him as if he was a stranger.

She felt shame.

She felt regret.

She felt sorry.

"He voiced his concerns. He, too, doesn't connect well with the idea of family. Like an 'ill fitting suit', if I remember his words correctly," Hannibal recalled.

"Do you struggle to connect with family?"

At the mention of family, Bella did not feel the tension of her last visit to her mother's house. She did not remember the nostalgia of reliving her favorite memories of her brother. No. She felt warmth at the memory of Will and her, smiling, carrying the few boxes that were her life into her new home. _Their home_. She remembers the nights spent on the porch or out on the lawn, a drink in hand and a smile on her face, as the dogs ran about. She thought of her and Abigail, painting their nails and flipping through frivolous magazines.

"Not as much as I used to," she answered with a ghost of a smile. She was getting better. Life was getting better, if only by a little. She had a family now.

"Used to?" He repeated. He knew only as much as Abigail. She had a missing brother and a strained relationship with her parents, her grandparents.

"You're surprised, aren't you? How could someone like me have anything less than a perfectly happy family?" A bitter laugh escaped her lips. "No. No. I didn't. . . I. . . I didn't connect well. Not with my parents."

"Just your parents?"

"Parents, grandparents. I simple human connection was never easy for me - or maybe it was too easy," she said with a shake of her head, unsure of which was truth. "I was too sensitive."

"Do you think sensitivity is a bad trait in a child?"

"I think a highly sensitive child is difficult to those who aren't sensitive," she clarified, pursing her lips shortly thereafter. She was still hurt by that family. She was still haunted by that outsider feeling within her old home. He now understood why she took a step away from the case.

"How do you see your sensitivity now? Do you see it as something that helps you navigate daily life?"

"Considering I fled a crime scene from the mere sight of it, I wouldn't say its something helpful."

Hannibal chuckled, looking at her and her bittersweet grin. She took pride in her failures. Reclamation. She was taking that of which should hurt her and placing it on display, using it as a shield, just as she did with her fear. It was tragically brilliant.

"Highly sensitive people are often mocked for being just that. Personally, I do not see it as a negative trait. To feel so passionately, that level of intensity, it shows that one is alive. Do you think Will is broken? He is the most sensitive of us all."

"Of course not," she muttered. "Rough around the edges, maybe, but broken?" She gave another shake of the head. She loved him. Hannibal would be blind not to see it.

"There is no shame in being sensitive, Bella."

He would bask in the authenticity of her emotions if she allowed him to liberate her, to slip through the veil of norms and be elevated to a higher existence.

"Well, my mother would digress," she said, trying to push his attempts at giving her pride in that sensitivity away. He knew it wouldn't be easy. "She often had me confined to the house, to my room, when I was being too 'difficult', and I was never easy. My grandmother reminded me of that. I still wince whenever someone puts a hand on my upper arm. She used to pinch me whenever I was misbehaving in church."

"You misbehaved in church?"

It was hard to imagine her acting up, even as a child. When he looked at her, he saw a woman so aware of herself and her body that he could imagine her as a dancer. So smooth, so fluid, so in tune with the space around her. She was well behaved, even when she wasn't. His next assumption would be that it was beaten into her, drilled in by physical punishment. She rubbed her arm, even at her own recount of her grandmother, soothing a pain that was long ago and far away from where and who she was now.

"I was restless. The first ten minutes of church, I was okay. I was quiet, still, and had my head raised with every intent to listen. Twenty minutes after that, I was tapping my foot, drumming my fingers, a thick feeling in my chest that made me want to run, for hours or days with no direction. By the end of church, I was digging my nails into wood, sometimes carving patterns. Once my mother found out, after being punished for that, I just moved from wood to my skin," she explained with a faint scoff. She raised her left hand, showing the back of it to him. There, marring smooth skin, was crescent shaped scars. When she turned her wrist, showing the palms of her hands, he saw, below a thickened line cutting her palm in half, was a mirror of those scars.

"Do you resent your mother for the pain she caused you?"

"Yes. I hate to say it, but yes. I do," she admitted, averting her eyes with shame. "I know I wasn't an easy child to care of. . ."

"But you were still a child."

She nodded.

"Is that why you struggle with caring for Abigail?" Her eyes snapped to his, a hint of betrayal in her eyes for asking such a bold question. Hannibal did not apologize. "You waver, drifting from being close to being far away."

"In my defense-" There was anger in her voice, and it thrilled him. "I think I have a right to be wary. _Surely_ , a psychiatrist would understand that being told 'kids turn out like their parents' doesn't always bring comfort. _Surely_ , a psychiatrist would understand a hurt person's fear of becoming the person who hurts people."

Her nostrils flared, eyes narrowed, fingers curled tight over her knife and fork.

There was that anger, that rage, that primal predatoral look in her eyes.

Yes, she could be so much more than the little doe that she appeared to be.

"The fact that you are concerned with becoming a mirror of your mother certainly brings into doubt on whether you would," he reasoned with. "Aside from that, do you think Abigail benefits from you drifting back and forth on whether or not you want to be close to her."

"I don't waver in wanting to be close to her," she quickly corrected, eyes softening, losing that angrily sharpened edge. "I just don't know whether it's good for her. I'm not a psychiatrist," she reminded him. He briefly wondered how often she thought that about herself, how inexperienced she was compared to those she was around. How often did she use that inexperience to her advantage? "A part of me wants to be there for her, to protect her."

"There is nothing wrong with a paternal instinct. It is Jack and Alana's greatest concern when it comes to Will, Abigail, and I. Though, for different reasons."

Jack suspected Abigail of using her status as a victim to influence Will and him. It was somewhat insulting to be thought of as so easily swayed that a child would manipulate him. However, he quickly stepped over that slight, especially once looking to Will Graham and his tender heart for Abigail, who was far stronger than most gave her credit for. "Most" being Alana Bloom, who looked at Abigail is such a fragility that she feared for her health. It was earlier in the morning that she came knocking on his office door, telling him she was worried about Abigail's growing anger and possible depression. She wanted to immerse Abigail in her tragedy, stuck in a primary clinical treatment facility. Alana would, intentionally or not, sooner snuff out the embers of a fire than let it grow into something bright and strong.

"And the other half?"

"The other half wants to teach her how to fight, how to survive. She can't do that if I'm holding her hand the whole time."

"While I agree that Abigail should be out in the world, finding her footing and the confidence to move on, I do not agree that she has to do so without someone else's help." At the sight of her lips parting, a breath being drawn in so quickly and so deeply that it looked almost as if she were trying to puff out her chest and look bigger than she was, he knew she misunderstood him. She was, after all, only human. "I'm not suggesting that you, or anyone else, smother her. I'm only suggesting that she wouldn't be harmed with simple guidance."

She yielded, if only for a second, but the light left her eyes just as quickly, leaving her to resume eating the tenderloin that was missing only a few bites. She ate slowly, often stopping to devote her full attention to him. It was endearing just as much as it was frustrating.

"Doesn't matter much, does it? You and I are not in charge of her life. That would be Dr. Bloom."

"She won't always be," he pointed out, raising a slice of the tenderloin high, a subtle reminder for his guest. The sound of metal scraping against the fine china let him know she was quickly cutting into it.

 _Good girl_.

"So, what would you have me do, Doctor?"

"I would want you to not limit yourself," he answered. "This case, the one you walked away from, is it truly family that made you run away? Or is it your inability to give them back a family that saddens you."

She didn't answer at first, instead seeking solace behind a mouthful of food. He waited, patiently, knowing that she would run out, and she would have to open her mouth again.

"I'm not sad."

"Oh?"

"I'm angry."

"Why?"

She gave him a pressing look.

"I'm angry because I can't do it. I can't help these 'lost boys' find a family, and I know - _god, I know_ \- how it feels to be without one."

Her eyes fell shut, her brows furrowing, bottom lip caught between her teeth. She looked to be in pain, and she was. He only wished that she would tell him why. What pained her? What struck that vulnerable heart so deeply that she hid from everything and anyone else, even Will Graham? Who was responsible for who she became?

"Have you ever had someone, someone that you would do anything - and I mean anything - for?"

He did. He closed his eyes, wiping away the memory.

"Yeah. Me too."

He didn't have to say what happened. She knew. She didn't know, but she knew that whoever it was, whoever he would have done anything for, was just like her brother. Gone. She, despite all cruelty of the thought, hoped he had the relief of at least knowing why they were gone.

His eyes opened, staring at her with a haunted look in his eyes, searching her own, trying to find out how and when she saw him. She didn't, yet at the same time, she did. As godlike as he was, she knew he was human. Hannibal had a mother. Hannibal had a father. He had a family, and one that he never spoke of. He was alone. He was just alone as Will was. He was just alone as she was. It was then, looking at those dark eyes that she was reminded of why she came to this dinner to begin with. She wanted to be his friend.

"I'm sorry," she whispered.

This time, he frowned. Not as harshly, not as angrily, but just as confused.

There she was again, staring with doe-like eyes, with words resting on the tip of her tongue and the edge of her lips, so soft that they might have drifted off, if she would only allow it.

"What are you sorry for?"

There was along pause, into which Bella's lips moved ever the slightly in an attempt to find just the right words to answer his question. And finally, those lips snapped shut, and she looked down, head hanging in shame. He noticed she was done with her food.

"I've forgotten why I'm here."

He could not tell what she meant by "here". Here with him? Here in his dining room? Here in Baltimore? Here as in alive?

He did not know.

"Why are you here, Bella."

"For you."

It was his turn for his lips to part, something unspoken resting on them.

"As a therapist?"

"As a friend, _Hannibal_."

This was why she attracted him so, he remembered. It was these moments, the moments when she stared straight, eyes wide with so many emotions that by the time he could recognize one, there was another rising. She could see him so clearly, who he was, what he wanted, what he expected, and she could so easily meet them. All she needed was what she was so scared of giving: guidance.

His spine straightened, rising in height despite being seated, staring down at her, she who had eyes that were far more pleasing and defined than by the simple color of them, feeling nothing but a tenderness he had long since forgotten.

"I forget how similar we are," she said with a tired sigh. "You're somewhat immaculate in the way you present yourself," she muttered. He was not sure if he was meant to hear it, but he had. "I forget that you too are looking for someone."

"Who do you think I am looking for?" he asked carefully.

She thought for a moment before giving a half-hearted smile.

"What everyone is looking for, I suppose. Someone to share your nature with, to form a genuine connection with."

"What kind of someone would that be?"

"I don't know. A sibling, a friend, a lover. Maybe something else entirely. Life is long, but short. No one should live it alone, though. That enough I know."

"Do you think that someone is yourself?" he asked after some time.

Where did she see herself in all that he was and would be? Of all the things she listed, did she see him or herself as just that? She was a fine work of art. Everything she was was set before him, and the more he noticed, the more questions he had. He wondered if she thought the same. How well did she know herself?

"I don't know," she answered honestly, taking a drink, wanting to wash away all her own thoughts and fears concerning just as he asked, her placement in relativity to him. Time passed, slowly ticking by, but after a while, she somewhat smiled. She looked as if she only half understood it herself. "I think I could be, though."

All he could do was stare with a smile.

"I think you could be as well."

There was something there. Something unseen and unspoken resting between them. He knew that he had her now. By the trust in her eyes and the hope resting in his chest, he knew it by sense alone. He drew the little doe to the waters and made her drink; Persephone ate the pomegranate.

"Are you done?"

"Yes. I believe so," she said, rising from her seat.

"Would you like dessert?"

"I'm afraid Will will be here soon," she declined with.

Hannibal dared not take it to heart. She'd pleased him enough tonight.

"Something to go? For Will," he added quickly, his lips curling upwards as he walked her to the door.

She gave him a kindhearted smile, unaware of what she would be, quite literally, bringing to their table.

"I think he would like that very much."

 ** _Will Graham's House, Wolftrap, Virginia_**

When he returned home from catching what Freddie Lounds called the "Blood Brothers", the unfortunate boys that were taken from their homes and made to kill their families, he was nervous. Coming home, especially after seeing what could happen to an otherwise happy family, he was unsure of how to handle himself, how to present himself as himself and without traces of what was left of the mother, the psychotic woman who murdered whole families by proxy. He didn't know how look Bella in the eyes and act as if he could think of home the same.

Yet, there she was.

He found her in the living room, just as she was that first time, lying among the dogs, happily reading a book, enjoying her time off from work. He didn't have it in him to resent the relief she was given.

He didn't have it in him because the second he saw her and she saw him, he saw light, life, pure energy fill her. She sprung to life, a smile radiating from her features, eyes brightened with recognition and familiarity, with love. He couldn't find it within himself to be angry. All he could find within himself was relief and joy. She glided towards him just as she had in his dreams, welcoming him home with a hug and soft kiss on his cheek, leading their pack of dogs that circled him, nipping at his feet and jumping about.

 _This is what home feels like._

"I would ask you how was work, but I'm fairly certain of the answer," she jokingly said.

He laughed, not because he found her words funny - it wasn't enough to permit a laugh - but because of how much he missed her.

"Should I expect dinner?" he asked jokingly as well. She rolled her eyes, knowing he would never ask her to do that. He ate enough badly cooked foods from her already.

"No, but I did make you a drink. Besides, you don't need to almost choke to prove you like me, Mr. Graham," she teased.

"I'll drink to that," he shot back, moving towards the kitchen. He could hear her snort and mutter under her breath. It brought a smile to his face to hear her and her bitterness. When he walked into the kitchen, he was partially surprised, finding no take out boxes inside the trash. "Did you actually cook?" he asked, half teasing and half serious, turning to look at her. She stood, leaning against the door frame, unamused, yet her expression faltered.

"Hannibal came. He brought the dogs food as well," she informed. Will raised a brow, half surprised again. Though, he should have known. Hannibal was a good man, a better friend - he could no longer see the line between their doctor-patient relationship and that of friendship. Neither could Bella, after hearing of her dinner with Hannibal. "He asks that you come to dinner next time," she added, averting her eyes as she revealed she promised his presence without consulting him. He could hardly blame her. They both, according to societal norms, needed more friends. Although, he would argue she was in more need. She took even less to Jack's team than he did.

"Next time?" he repeated. "Should I be worried?"

"Should I?" she shot back, moving towards him, taking her glass when he offered it. "It wouldn't hurt to get to know him, would it?"

"We do know each other," he tried.

"In a informal and non-professional environment," she clarified. "I was so. . . wary of him before."

She was still wary of Hannibal. Less so, but she still was. She wouldn't mention that though. She took her own paranoia as just that. Her fears and anxieties trying to overwhelm her judgement. Negative feelings aside, when she thought of Will and Hannibal, the way they stood together, spoke together, she could so easily see them as just that. Them. They could be friends. They could expand their bubble just enough to be seen.

"And all that changed with a dinner?" Will asked, taking a gulp of whiskey in disbelief.

"Well, no," she confessed, briefly regretting how well he knew her. Briefly. "I just. . . I don't know," she ended with, looking down at the amber colored drink.

There was a surge of panic in him, but his face only twitched in response. He should have known better. Bella was a fragile strong woman. She wasn't strong in the sense that nothing could hurt her. She wasn't Jack, who would be the human version of rock. No. She was his woman of the rivers, enduring despite obstacles. Not so much as indestructible as she was able to adapt to circumstance. Jack was the hero. She was the survivor. It was both a comfort and a concern. He knew she could live a long life, but at what cost?

He remembered a time - a time he wasn't apart of, but knew nevertheless - when she was so beautifully alive. He remembered the photograph of a girl with a bold smile and unapologetic happiness. Though he adored the woman before him, he would have given anything to see her colors return to her washed out living. He wanted her to be more than content, more than a survivor accepting the short moments of relief they were given. He wanted to give her what every person in the world wanted: peace and happiness.

Wishing for something didn't make it so. That he knew.

And so, he would swallow his wants and give and take where he could.

"No. Talk. Talk to me."

She looked up from her drink, unsure of what to say, what to do. For a moment, he was lost in the memory of their first shared drinks. They came too far to revert back to that level of uncertainty, that level of anxiety, riddled with fears of what the other would see them as.

She took a breath, looked back to her drink, and then at him again, openly contemplating if she would or not. He knew her decision before she did, and all he did was wait. She would talk to him just as he would talk to her.

"I just think I might be wrong," she settled on. "You weren't fond of him at first either, and now you're confiding in him," she reasoned, giving a pleading look.

"He is my therapist. Yours too."

"He could be more."

Her words were not what struck him silent. It was how her words already echoed a thought he never put into words: friendship. It was a frightening concept, the intimacy that he could share with Hannibal. He never spoke of his fondness towards the "good doctor", always too afraid of this man, this man who saw him almost effortlessly, hearing him. As much as he adored Bella, he fostered an unprecedented fondness for Hannibal. His very exquisite and complex nature, the tragedy in the man's eyes, Will craved an understanding of the man in a way that he never knew he could yearn for. The only thing holding him back was the very same thing that held him from Bella (or her for him) in the beginning: a lack of courage.

Perhaps it was inevitable.

He slunk into a weary wooden chair, hiding his tired eyes behind calloused fingers.

" _Will_."

Why did she have to say his name as if it were prayer?

" _Will._ "

When he felt her cool fingertips curl over his hands, drawing them away from his eyes, he tried looking anywhere except where she was. Yet, when he couldn't see her out of his peripheral vision, he searched for her, only to find her, kneeling before him, looking up to him with pleading eyes as she said his name once more. She was commanding even when she was being gentle. When his eyes softened as they always had, the corners of her lips lifted with pride in her accomplishments, and he remembered how young she was.

"Don't worry yourself," she whispered, reaching a hand towards him, tenderly moving his hair from his eyes, offering him the sweetest of smiles. "You don't have to do a thing. I'm perfectly fine with it being just you and me and our little bubble." What he would give to spend his life with his family of strays, not having to look out into their cruel and ugly world that Bella somehow found beauty in. "Come to bed," she murmured, rising to her feet, sliding her hand from his roughened cheek to his shoulder, where it lingered for only a few seconds longer before she turned away, leaving him and their drinks behind.

He had half a mind to take their drinks to the room but decided against it. He didn't need a drink to sleep anymore. He had her to hold onto, her to slow his heart, her to tether him to reality while he slipped off into a dream.

In bed, he told her about the lost boys. He told her about that woman who tried building a family by blood that didn't run in their veins, but that of others. He told her about how he didn't connect to the idea of family, not in the way that Beverly, Jimmy, or even Brian Zeller connected to it, and she told him not to worry. She shared with him memories of her own family. She told him of her mother, her grandmother, of how she became an unwilling only child. She told him of how she, an imperfect little girl was forced to be molded into their flawless image, and how she failed.

"They'd disown me if they could," she murmured, half asleep, his forehead resting against hers. What felt like a long time ago, he would have been afraid of being this close. Now? Now, he rested easier with her close. "They won't. I'm their legacy, whether they or I like it or not."

Will mentioned how he didn't know his own mother. All she could say was "neither did I." The topic of motherhood, what it should be and what it was to them, stirred the same desire and aversion to parenthood. Usually, they would both close their eyes, let the ideas slip away and carry on their peaceful way. Tonight, they didn't. Bella opened her eyes, looking into his, and she asked, "What do you want your legacy to be?"

He rolled onto his back, pulling away from her, uncomfortable. It wasn't so much the topic of a "legacy", but what the topic might do to them. This was why their rules stood in place. Both of them were impossibly terrified of ruining the bliss between them with trivial topics that ended a majority of relationships.

She knew him and understood him too well.

Not even a minute after rolling onto his back, she placed a hand on his cheek as she rose, propping herself up on an elbow to gaze down at him. However hollow eyed and vague she was moments ago, she was lively now. And, once again, she said his name, letting it leave her lips effortlessly. Staring at her, in this moment, seeing how much she cared, how much she _felt_ for him, he realized that her love was unconditional. For anyone she ever loved, she loved fully. Her brother, Abigail, and him. No boundries, no limits, no conditions. She loved him.

He knew that it was okay.

Their rule of not talking, their rule of trying to tiptoe around what might break what was between them, was obsolete.

"I don't know," he admitted.

Satisfied, she lied back down, resting her head on his chest, an arm wrapped over his abdomen.

"That's okay," she sighed. "I don't know either."

She was his mirror.

"I was scared of caring for Abigail," she admitted. It was hardly a surprise. He would have to be blind to not notice the intimacy between the two. Even Jack saw it. The difference between him and Jack was that Jack wanted to use it against Abigail. Bella would never do that. She loved Abigail.

"Was?" he repeated, brow furrowing.

"Yes."

"Cognitive reappraisal," she yawned.

With that, she went to sleep, leaving him to think on doing just that.

 **Behavioral Analysis Unit, Quantico, Virginia**

It was her first time back in the lab. In all honesty, she didn't understand why she was needed. She wasn't like Beverly, Jimmy, or Brian. They had a role to play in this maddening war they all fought in. They knew their role. They knew what they had to do and when they had to do it. And her? She felt like a mistake at worst, a useful mistake at best. She wasn't chosen. She wasn't sought out. No. She was found. As easily as Jack Crawford plucked her from her quiet life, he could all the easily drop her at a moment's notice.

Yet, she couldn't find it in her to be worried.

She would have been content with her life if she was still cleaning broken linoleum tiles and peeling off-colored walls waiting as time ticked by. She could live out her days in a self-induced haze. It wouldn't be as enjoyable, but she knew she was capable of it. The likes of Jack Crawford and his team might not. They were so hungry, so desperate to feel important. She could see it in Brian's eyes most. She could smell it on him some nights, those nights when they're all called from a good nights rest to see what the most horrible crimes by and against their own kind were. He reeked of alcohol and wallowing in his own sorries on those nights. She could understand loneliness, the scars it left on a person's soul, but she didn't hide it. She lived in them. Brian was a coward, hiding under a humorous tone and behind a smug grin. He was terrified. He could never lie with those eyes, so sad, so lonely, so hungry.

Even Beverly was riddled with some hunger, some thirst for playing some important role. Unlike Brian, she adorned herself in a rigorous and eager cloak. She spent most of her nights awake, always pushing herself to find more, to do more. She was the gun and Jack was the one pulling the trigger. She had someone to believe in. While Bella acknowledged that most people were like this, needing someone or something that was strong and right and just, Bella knew there were other ways to do it.

The only exemption could be Jimmy. Jimmy was a rather happy member of the team, playing his part, but he understood something Brian and Beverly did not. All these things, these terrible crimes they surrounded them with, it didn't make them important. He believed in doing his part, not because he had an important role to play, but rather because he could play a role that thousands could do. He was doing his part not out of some obligation, but because it was right and just. He was his own maker, and for that, he slept better than the lot of them at night. He had something even Bella didn't have: separation. She once thought to ask if he had a family beyond the twin he so clearly disliked. Did he have a spouse? Did he have children? Did he have loved ones that kept him grounded? Is that where he found hope?

Those same kinds of questions wandered into her mind as she stared at the body on the autopsy table.

Adelaide Atwood was her name, a beautiful name to match a once beautiful girl. If Bella closed her eyes, she could picture her, alive and well. She would have been a woman of gold. Golden strands of hair twisted into a tight bun; golden skin shining with a thin layer of sweat as she danced for hours a day; and honey colored eyes that would sparkle like gold under a spotlight as she captured the love and affection of her watchers. In Bella's mind, she would have moved with a grace that was underappreciated. She would have carried a rhythm in every step, whether music was playing or not. In Bella's mind, she would be every bit as beautiful on the inside as the out; a woman whose smile was as sweet as sugar.

Now, under fluorescent lights, she lost the golden tone in her skin. Her eyes, when opened, read of emptiness. Her body was no longer a vessel for art, just a body, an empty shell that they sliced open with sharpened scalpels. It made Bella want to turn her eyes away. It was a tragedy to see people this way, a reflection of what death took.

It steals everything one is. Their joy. Their fear. Their desire. Their rage. Their _love_. Death takes everything, stealing away into nothingness, leaving behind nothing but her loud voice: that terrifying silence. Anything it touches, it poisons. Childhood never truly ends until its touched by Death.

Was Adelaide Atwood still a child when she died?

"Third one this year," Jack Crawford announced, passing her by, handing a file to Will, who was leaning against a wall, staring at Adelaide's body, his eyes almost as far away as Adelaide's. In another time, Bella might have been frightened that look. Now, all she felt was sympathy. Jack was wrapping another rope around Will's neck, asking him to find someone, a monster in human flesh, or hang himself with those righteous ropes if he failed.

Bella could never truly tell how she felt about Jack because of this.

"Officially a serial killer," Bella stated, only to hear Brian Zeller purposefully cough. Glancing up, meeting his gaze, she raised a brow. He averted his own eyes before correcting her.

"That's going by the 1998 definition, yeah. It would be, but nowadays it can be used at two or more, not three or more, if they meet the same requirements."

"Oh."

"Don't worry too much on it. You probably didn't know about the 2005 Serial Murder Symposium."

His smugness in reminding her of her place didn't bother her any. She knew where she stood when it came to experience. She was the unofficial baby of the team, just stumbling about, trying to figure out how things worked.

Perhaps more than a baby.

"Terminology doesn't matter," Jack reminded, calling them to attention. All but Bella stood a little straighter. She did not want to be a performer in their little arena. She wanted to be a watcher, safe in the shadows. "What can you tell me about the victim?"

Bella felt her stomach knot. She wanted to remind Jack that Adelaide was a person, that she was and should be more than a victim. Now was not the time, nor the place. Though she knew it was entirely appropriate, she still felt sickened when she looked at what was once a person and now was stripped of everything she ever was or could become. She was just a "victim" in everyone's eyes now. It made Bella wonder what would become of her after she died.

"It didn't take us long to identify the body," Jimmy began.

"She was gifted."

All eyes fell on Will, who was busy reading the file, much more content with reading than listening to the chipper voice of Jimmy Price. It was unintentionally disgusting to hear how this was a puzzle to him.

Bella wondered if she would ever be like them. Would she become immune to the tragedy of death?

"She was found by her director," Will said, taking a glance at her. Answering the silent call, she moved to his side to take a look.

It was _beautiful_.

The curtains were drawn. A painted background of lush hills bathing in the colors of sunrise; flowers of white circled a glass clam-like bed structure that was raised above a porcelain colored platform by dark brown - almost black - branch like legs that cradled the bed of glass. The glass was decorated with golden vines and leaves from the bottom and the top that was held open, revealing flowers, stunning pink carnations, as the cushion on which she, Adelaide, adorned in a gown of white, was laid upon. Her hair was left loose in waves, fanned out over a pillow of flowers, and on her head was a crown of golden leaves. Her hands, covered by white lace gloves, were folded over her heart. Her face was so gentle that she might have been sleeping, dreaming of a love as sweet as the flowers she lied on.

"How'd she die?" Jack asked, tearing his eyes from the picture, from what he saw. How lucky he was to not have eyes that saw as Will's did. How lucky he was to be able to turn his eyes away.

"Unlike the others, she didn't die from a lack of heart," Brian said, half-joking. Beverly was the only one to openly roll her eyes.

"The other two died because he removed their hearts - Well, he put them under anesthesia and, for the lack of a better phrase, took their hearts," Beverly clarified, walking over to Adelaide's body. "This one is different, though."

"He didn't remove her heart," Jack guessed.

"Oh, he did," Beverly corrected. "He just put it back. She died a month after 'surgery', judging by scar development," she said, pointing to the same area where Adelaide Atwood's hands were once folded. "She died of an overdose, but that came at least a month afterwards."

Her killer hid her scar. Was he hiding what he did? Was he preserving the beauty she was before?

"She wasn't just set apart by giving back her heart," Will said. Finally shutting the file, passing it to her. Bella flipped through to the previous women. Both were dancers, both on display in beautiful sets. "She was also the only one that went missing for longer than a month before she ended up dead. . ." Whatever else he said was lost on Bella. All her attention fell on the pictures.

One of them, Mia Kingston, had a simple set. A background of the woods at night, distinguished only by the faint outlines of hills against the night's sky, two trees and two piles of decorative rocks on either side of the stage. Once again, in the center, dressed in white was a dancer. This time she was on the ground, her right leg folded beneath her, her left extended outward, towards the audience. Her upper body folded to the point where her head, crowned by flowers, was by her knee. Outstretched to either side were her arms, a white scarf wrapped around each.

The other two were. . . off.

She recognized the scene immediately.

Looking at the second, she saw a forest-like set. A background with the night's sky again, with the outline of trees, with a grave stone sitting in the left side of the set where a bouquet flowers once again rested. Unlike Mia Kingston or Adelaide Atwood, Eleanor Jenkins was sitting upright. On her knees by the grave, arms delicately extended upright, in them was a single white rose, making her look as if she were offering it, a parting gift. Yet, the defining feature was not her being upright. It was the veil on the back of her head.

Yes. Bella recognized this one as well.

"They're ballets," she said. Though her voice was quiet, the fact that she was speaking called some attention.

Jack, however, wasn't too pleased with her realization.

"Yes. They all were ballet dancers. We knew this."

"No," she said, shaking her head, fighting off the infectious frustration passed onto her with Jack's tone. "These are ballets. They are depictions of the classics," she insisted. Pulling out Mia Kingston's photo, showing it. "This is _La Sylphide._ "

"La. . ." Jack didn't recognize it. None of them did.

" _La Sylphide_ , a scottish farmer falls in love with a spirit, a sylph, on his wedding day. At the wedding the sylph steals the ring and runs off. The farmer chases her, and along the way is gifted a scarf that, if bound by it, he'll be able to keep the sylph. He does it, but instead, she dies. Mia Kingston plays the sylph," she explained. "Eleanor Jenkins," she said, pulling her picture. " _Giselle_. A nobleman, pretending to be a peasant, falls in love with a peasant girl, Giselle, but he's already betrothed. Once she finds out, she dies of a broken heart and becomes a wili, a virgin girl who dies of a broken heart. Adelaide Atwood-" This time Bella doesn't pull out a photo. "She is Sleeping Beauty. We all know the story of that one."

"So our killer likes ballet?"

Bella let out a frustrated sigh.

 _He still doesn't get it_.

Thankfully, Will did.

"The third doesn't end with the woman dying," Will realized, looking to Bella with a mix of confusion and pride, but only for a moment. Then, his eyes turned to Adelaide Atwood.

"He didn't intend for her to die?" Jack guessed. Bella could only shrug.

"I don't know. Maybe they did, maybe they didn't."

Will just shook his head, drifting closer to Adelaide's body.

"No. He did intend for her to die," Will insisted.

"Then why did he give her back her heart?"

"I don't know."

"How do you know he intended for her to die then?"

"If he was making a second attempt, she wouldn't have a closing scar when she died of an overdose," Will said. "Why he kept her alive for a while and not the others, I don't know. Not yet," he snapped.

Jack's eyes read of betrayal at Will's sharpened tone. He expected Will to come when called, yet here Will was, growing his teeth and baring them at the dangling of the fatal leash Jack all but thrusted upon him.

"Just give him some time," Bella said, moving forward until she stood almost directly between the two.

"We don't have time. For all we know, he could already have another woman," Jack snapped.

Bella was at a loss of words for a moment before she flipped through the file again, finding the dates each woman went missing and turned up dead. "This person, they take at least a month in between murders. Adelaide Atwood was found four days ago-"

"Time of death was a week," Jimmy added.

"Plus, the first two were taken a week before their deaths. The only one missing for more than that was Adelaide Atwood, but that was after a two month cooling period. Until we have a lead, just have every ballet company on the east do a check for their dancers in their dancers," Bella instructed. She held her head straight, not faltering as she looked, almost glaring, into Jack's dark eyes. "Would you rather waste time on a false lead or wait a little and get the right person?"

Jack didn't waver, however. Instead, his head tilted, sizing her up in the way he had on their first case.

"Okay," he said, nodding slowly. "You have a feel for what this guy's pattern's are-"

"I wouldn't go that far."

"Regardless," Jack dismissed. "I want you on this case."

"I thought I was already on it," she said confused.

"I have another case, one that's a little less. . ." Jack trailed off, looking at Will as he tried to find the right words. " _Refined_." There was an unspoken insult in his tone, whether he intended their to be or not.

"You'll take a lead on this one like Will would," he decided. Will began shaking his head, already beginning to protest. "Will, I have another case-"

"She's not ready. She hasn't even reached double digits whenever it comes to catching more additions to your Evil Minds Museum," Will snapped. Bella couldn't agree more. "She's not a professional."

"If you don't think she's ready, I'll just have her cleared by Dr. Lecter. He's a professional," Jack echoed.

When Bella's eyes swept across the room, she found Jimmy's, Brian's, and Beverly's eyes anywhere else but on the tension resting between Will and Jack. She both wanted to sigh in sympathy or scowl in disgust. But, she didn't. She of all people couldn't truly judge them on wanting to survive. Jack was the one at risk at the moment. He was angry, insulted, and had enough power to make whatever he decided hurt. Will, at worst, he could hang up his coat, take her hand, and go back to teaching if he so wanted. His biggest action would be leaving - though she doubted Jack would even allow that. He held and exercised his power more often than he cared to admit.

"Can we just take a break?" Bella asked exasperatedly.

When their eyes fell on her, they saw her, brows furrowed, lips pressed together, and a disappointed look in her eyes. For a moment, both felt a level of failure. For Jack, he felt immature, a level of unprofessional-ism that was as unbecoming of him as it was of the likes of Freddie Lounds. For Will, he felt guilty of having done what he knew she didn't need. For all her fragility, Bella was a strong woman.

"While I don't agree that I'm near ready to take on a case - nor do I ever think I will be - I don't think that arguing about this is good for anyone. Right now, like Jack said, we need clear minds. Teams fall apart due to instability and the first sign of instability is tension like this," she snapped. "We can afford at least a day - at least a few hours, to ourselves - before we turn on the focus lenses again," she added with a sigh. "Can we just take a break?" she asked, looking to them both.

Will didn't take long to yield. He simply looked to the ground, half in shame, and nodded. Jack, on the other hand, stared for a moment. He just stared at - _No_. No, he stared _into_ her. There was such a foreign familiarity in his eyes, and though she did not know it, he was staring into the eyes of a memory of a young woman that was, like her, talented, tired, but had a level head in times of distress. If he could have given that woman a break, just a little more time, he would have. And so, he yielded.

"Two days," he gave her. Though it surprised everyone else, she took it in stride. Instead of being smug, she smiled, a kindness Will wanted to protect. Despite all her fear, anger, and sadness, she was compassionate enough to appreciate what she could, and this gift was something even Will appreciated, though much more reluctantly.

"Thank you," Bella said quietly.

After a few seconds of thinning silence, she pulled up her right sleeve, checking the watch on her wrist. It was almost noon.

Looking up at Jack, not Will, with a slight glimmer in her eyes, the right corner of her lips lifted.

"Lunch."

"Lunch?" Jack repeated, only to receive an assured nod.

"If I've learned anything this past week, it's that a good meal and a moment to breathe can open her one's eyes to more than they thought they would."

Will knew she was talking about Hannibal. He would have had half a heart to worry about her admiration for the doctor, had he not carried his own admiration for him. For all his cautiousness, Will was growing his own soft spot for Hannibal. Perhaps Bella was right to encourage a friendship. If she could get Jack Crawford to yield so early in their relationship, she must understand something he didn't. Alana took years to skirt Jack's anger, and Bella, not even a year in, was figuring it out.

Before fully committing to having a dinner with Hannibal Lecter, he supposed he could test his openness with Jack.

"I could go for a meal," Will agreed with.

Though Jack appeared skeptic, it was only for a moment. Before long he gave a nod and motioned for them to lead the way. Bella only gave a faint smile before nodding towards the hall, leading the way out. In this, he was reminded of how willful she was. She rarely took control so openly, yet, when she did, it was almost too natural to even notice. For as passive as she was, floating through the stream of life, when he found her, he was coming to know that there was strength in her body, a will to swim to the shore if her life's current was not to her satisfaction. It made her slippery, someone that could leave so easily, but that was one of the beauties of her. If she was seen, it was because she allowed him to see it - or so it felt.

When he looked at her, and when she looked at him, they felt it, this pure human connection that everyone longed for. It was the kind of look that was recognizable, identifiable as "love". It was the kind of love Jack once had for his own Bella.

For that, he found himself following the two with a slowing heart, lost in the nostalgia of his own youth.

He was so lost that he almost didn't hear his name being called from behind.

Almost.

When he turned, he saw a woman rushing towards him.

She was young, no older than mid thirties. She was tall, something shown by a sharply tailored suit. She had dark skin, dark hair, and dark eyes. She looked flushed from having ran to catch up. When she stopped, her reddened lips curled upwards into a proud and welcoming smile, one that illuminated her whole face. Even those dark eyes shined like the night's sky. Holding out her hand for him to shake, he returned her smile.

"Agent Crawford, my name is. . ."

Her eyes had drifted from his for only a second, but that was all it took. Suddenly, the color drained from her face, and her lips slowed until they were silent and downturn. Her hand which proudly grasped onto his turned limp the longer she stared over his shoulder. When he followed her gaze, all he saw was Will and Bella. As he turned, Will did as well, catching his eyes before falling on the woman. He must have been sharing a joke with Bella, as the smile on his face vanished as well. At the sight of that fading smile, Jack felt his stomach drop, wondering what Will could have done to drain the woman's light so quickly.

"Ms. . ."

Her eyes didn't waver. Not even a slight dilatation from being called on. She looked half frightened and half relieved. It was as though she were staring at a ghost, her own personal haunting.

"Ma'am," Jack tried again. "Are you okay?"

It was all he could think to ask.

Behind him, Bella turned on her feet, a confused look on her face at Will's sudden change of attitude. When she followed Will's line of sight, her whole body changed. Her weight shifted, feet perpendicular to one another, ready to take off once more. Feeling her move, Will looked to her, seeing her eyes ignite with recognition. Her colors washed away just as the woman before Jack had.

The woman's lips quivered, so many unspoken words just aching to be let free, yet all that escaped were three syllables.

" _Bellamy_."

She all but ripped her hand from Jack, moving forward. Every step grew in sound and force. Her movements were sharp, harsh, and angry. All the same, Bella moved backwards, her movements fluid, her steps light.

Both took about five steps before they came to a standstill.

" _Bellamy._ "

Her voice was filled with with a quiet anguish, but her eyes? They screamed, crying out as old scars were ripped open.

And Bella? Will had only once seen her eyes filled with guilt, so many apologies resting on the tip of her tongue. All that left were four syllables. One word.

" _Alejandra_."

* * *

 _ **So there it is! For those of you who don't remember, it'll be**_ _ **explained in the next chapter, so don't worry too much. For those of you who do, I hope you enjoy this and are excited!**_

 _ **Before I end this note, I do want to apologize again.**_

 _ **I know. I know. I say this so often, but honestly, I didn't intend for this to take over a month! University is hard, and I'm going through a bit of a rough patch right now. . . I was on the verge of abandoning and giving up, but then I**_ _ **got your reviews!**_

 _ **To hear your thoughts, theories, and understandings of what I write. . . So few things can compare to the pleasure and delight I feel whilst reading them. (Anna B., I actually changed the cover because I had a new one and hadn't uploaded it; Mari Dark, you inspired me rewrite the dinner scene)**_

 _ **FINAL NOTES**_

 ** _I hope you enjoyed the surprise at the end and the murderer/serial killer I've begun. I've recently taken an interest in the ballet, so I figured "why not"._**

 ** _The next chapter will be featuring a little on chasing this killer, delving into a past relationship, ABEL GIDEON, and FREDERICK CHILTON (maybe a little bit of Freddie too. . . I haven't decided yet)._**

 ** _So please, don't be shy, drop me a review. I always love hearing your thoughts, feelings, and questions._**


	10. Chapter 10

**All rights to Hannibal (TV) belong to NBC.**

 **This chapter is dedicated to** **LisaxDeanshipper97** **and** **MariDark.**

 **Also, special thanks to** **hannahizar** **, CaptainMc, and Sanja**

* * *

 _ **Behavioral Analysis Unit, Quantico, Virginia**_

It took a moment before they saw each other as they were.

Both were lost in the memories of who they once were to see straight.

Neither would ever know that the first memory the other chose to unpack first was the same.

It was an early Wednesday morning, just a few hours into the day. They were lying in bed, bathing in the moonlight streaming in from the large angled window beside Alejandra's bed because of how safe they felt falling asleep under the stars even on the darkest of nights. Both stared, half-awake, with their eyes growing heavier each time they closed, looking anywhere except one another, making shapes out of the darkness. There was a thin sheet separating them, just as it had been lately in those times, a bittersweet reminder of what no longer was, those days when they, naked and comfortable with their vulnerability, held onto one another until their hearts slowed to a simple and restful beat.

That night Alejandra stared at the endless night sky, face twitching, fighting back growing tears. Beside her, Bella laid on her side, wrapped in a thin grey sheet, legs drawn close to her chest, refusing to be touched, to be held as she once was. There were no tears in her eyes, but the heaviness of her heart was almost unbearable. Both wanted nothing more to touch one another, to hold one another, to cry onto the other's shoulder and whisper to each other, "Everything will be okay. . . I got you. . . you are safe." Yet, neither moved. In a big drafty house that was once filled with loving memories, they both felt ruined, and all they had to blame was themselves. They both felt the crippling loss of a loved one even with them lying at their side.

Their love, their future, was a river that ran dry, the skin and bones of something that was once alive.

Their love was brought to ruins, and that night, it was crumbling. And all they did was lie there for hours after trying so hard, so desperate, to rekindle what they once had. Their love was too delicate to last. The cracks ran too deep. The only choice they had was whether to watch it slowly fall apart or to take their love, grasp what little love living was left, and shatter it. It would have been a mercy, but neither had the courage. Neither had the heart to destroy what they still cherished. For all their faults, they loved each other.

They had their good moments. In fact, during the day, during the times when they were filled with more life, this feeling, this loneliness, was far from their minds. Even in her apprehensiveness, she could find herself almost filled with love. It was only when the day turned night, when their movements slowed and the silence settled in, when that thick black fog slipped back into her life, into the air she breathed, into the blood in her veins, was Bella lost, too deep in her sea of sorrows for Alejandra to pull her back to the surface.

That night, Alejandra pulled herself into a sitting position. She expected Bella to sit up or at least roll over to face her. She was disappointed. Bella didn't even give her the courtesy of pretending to sleep. Despite Bella's lack of response, she still chose to speak, only after a heavily exhausted sigh left her lips, lips that Bella once watched, so enchanted by their shape, by the words they whispered, lips that she now reluctantly met, too guilty to let them touch her own.

"Bells," she tried, reaching to place a hand on Bella's bare shoulder. Her fingers were just about to graze against her pale when she withdrew her hand. It didn't feel right to touch her. It felt like a violation, like she wasn't welcome to touch her like a lover did. "Bella, I love you."

Her voice had been so terribly broken. The confession wasn't sweet. It sounded more like an apology. It had sharp edges and it cut into Bella's heart. Bella's fingers dug into her pillow, eyes closing tightly as she tried to stomach the sickening pain that she caused. Alejandra, this beautifully kind woman, this woman who swam out into the depths and pulled her to the surface, was growing weary, slipping under the water with her, too much in love to let go and save herself. Bella blamed herself. Alejandra was good; Alejandra was kind before she walked into her life. Alejandra made her better for a while, and what did she get in return? All Bella could see was how she dragged Alejandra into the waters of misery and clung to her until she was drowning with her. It was a terrible, horrible, awful thing to do to her first and only love at the time.

"I love you too," Bella said in return. There was an unspoken apology in her voice as well. That is when tears began to rush towards her eyes. All she did was hide behind her hair, ashamed. Her voice was brittle, just like their love.

"I. . . I know," Alejandra said hesitantly.

She wouldn't argue with Bella. She wouldn't argue because she knew that Bella wouldn't fight back. Bella loved her too much. Bella loved Alejandra not as her equal, but as someone who was better, someone who didn't deserve the burden that Bella saw herself as.

Bella jolted, a sob wrecking through her body. That was when Alejandra touched her. Her whole body shifted, ready to fall back into the places they once were, to love the pain away. Bella didn't have the strength to push her away, but the word, the single word that left her lips, was enough.

"Don't."

"Bella, _please._ "

Bella only shook her head, drawing her knees to her chest, clinging to herself. She was too guilty to love Alejandra freely.

"Don't cry, Bella," Alejandra pleaded in her softly spoken voice. Bella didn't need to see her to know she was crying too. "Bella, what do I do? What can I do? How do I help? How do I make it better?" Alejandra asked desperately. With every question, her words quickened, wanting - _needing_ \- to know how she could save her. When she was met with silence, there was this sinking feeling in her heart. Suddenly, she couldn't find that sad love in her anymore. All the love that was left was angry and violent. "Go."

Bella sat up, looking at her with wide eyes, understanding, but heartbroken all the same.

"Ale-"

"Go!" Alejandra shouted, eyes shutting tight. Her hands fell over her eyes, not wanting to see herself break, not wanting to see herself break Bella. "That is the choice, _Bellamy_. You can either stay or go!"

"I _want_ to stay. I've always wanted to stay-"

"What's the point?" Alejandra cried out, opening her teary eyes. Her head shook slowly, so terribly ruined in disappointment. Her dark eyes looked to the place, the empty place on the mattress where Bella often lied. "When you're here, you're not really here. . . So what's the fucking point?" she asked bitterly, closing her eyes once more before looking to the woman she loved.

Her heart broke even more when Bella didn't fight back.

"Just. . . go," she whispered.

She told Bella to go, but she wanted nothing more than for Bella to stay.

"I'll go."

And that was that.

Bella left, and Alejandra fell back to her cold and empty bed. She cried until the sun rose, until she fell asleep again. The day after that, after she felt the gaping hole left in her heart, she went to find Bella, to apologize, to tell her that they could still make things work. When she got to her hall, to her room, Bella's roommate answered, telling her that Bella went for a drive.

"Twenty minutes tops," her roommate repeated to her. Alejandra gave a weak smile and nodded. She told herself that she could wait. So, she went downstairs, waiting in the lobby. The minutes passed by. Then an hour. Then two. When the third hour hit, she went home, calling Bella's phone. A few days passed by, and Alejandra called Bella's family. They hadn't heard from her. When she visited some of her classes, she found that Bella hadn't gone to any. She was just. . . gone.

It broke her to know that the last time she saw the woman she loved was when she was sending her away.

And here they were, staring ghosts of the pasts in the eyes, never expecting something broken and left behind to return.

The first thing Alejandra noticed once she rose from her memories was Bella's face. The thin scars on her former lover's _beautiful_ face. The next was her eyes, those warm browns that now were cold and wary, not in the anxious way they once had. No. There was a hardness to her eyes, a familiarity with pain and experience.

She was so much like she had been the last time they were alone, yet entirely different.

Her hair, her long brown hair that Alejandra would spend hours just running her fingers through as they lounged about, was gone, cut shorter, just a little beyond the bottom of her neck. Had she asked, she would have found out, much to her surprise, that it had been shorter than this. She didn't ask. No. Her eyes took in Bella's overall appearance, noting everything that was different.

 _Everything was different._

Where was her sweet sweater wearing love? The girl with the long brown hair and doll like brown eyes? The girl who was like the spring? Where was the Bella she knew?

"What are you doing here?" Alejandra asked, blinking as she remembered that they weren't alone. Her eyes flickered to Jack Crawford and, recognizing him from pictures, Will Graham. She noticed him quickly by the way he stood. It wasn't him alone that caused her eyes to take him in as well. It was how he stood that startled her out of her thoughts and memories. He stood at an angle, weight shifted as if waiting for the moment to move, to throw himself in front of Bella, shielding her.

Her eyes narrowed as she felt a pain in her heart.

It was Jack Crawford who answered.

"Ms. Bennet is similar to that of Special Agent Will Graham. She helps solve some of our more, ah, difficult cases," Jack said carefully, noticing how Alejandra's eyes kept wandering to Bella.

"Special. . . Agent," she breathed, looking to the ground, lost in confusion, if only for a moment. Quickly she shook her head, remembering who she was and what she was sent to do. Clearing her throat, standing straighter, yet not as straight or strong as she had before, she looked to Jack. "Agent Crawford, my name is Alejandra Alvarez. I work as an investigator for the Office of the Inspector General. I work for Kade Prurnell," she clarified. At the mention of being an investigator, all but her changed. Jack's worry turned to irritation and Will Graham's caution turned to downright defensiveness.

"Are you here to investigate my team?" Jack asked, growing angered by the thought of someone turning him in.

"No," Alejandra quickly answered. "I'm here as more of an inspector than investigator. Its more of a formality, really," she promised. "Is there anywhere we-" her eyes briefly flickered to Bella. "-can talk?"

Jack, noticing the way she looked at Bella, nodded.

"Follow me," he invited, directing her back towards the way they all came from. Before he followed, he looked to Bella and Will. "Go on without me."

Alejandra turned quickly looking from Bella to Jack, unspoken words resting on parted lips.

"That won't be a problem, will it?" Jack asked, distrust showing in his voice.

Alejandra's lips shut quickly, noticing the change.

Still, she looked to Bella.

She was untouchable.

"Of course."

 ** _Will Graham's House, Wolftrap, Virginia_**

Will didn't ask her how she knew Agent Alvarez. Based on the look on her face, he knew he couldn't expect an answer. Her face was pale, her eyes distant and cold, too far from being alive to give him any comfort or security. He had no problem giving her time, giving her space. If she needed silence, he gave that to her. He didn't leave her alone though. Bella wouldn't want to be alone. He could all but hear an echo of her words on that first night at his house. "When we're all alone, we're hopelessly lost. . ." He knew her. He knew her like he knew himself.

And so, when she closed her eyes, brow furrowing as she fought off all that was once buried and rising once more, he took her cold hand in his. Her eyes opened, her brow relaxing, and her eyes falling onto him despite his own being focused on the road at the time. She didn't voice it, but he heard her thank him all the same. This was how well he knew her. A touch of the hand, no matter how faint, was enough to calm her, his silent promise that he was there, that she wasn't alone anymore.

"Do you want to talk about it?" he asked quietly. She didn't answer at first and her eyes didn't leave him, silently testing him. When he didn't force her too, she let out a sigh of relief, placing her free hand over the one that covered hers. He wondered if there would ever be a time when he would tire of the feeling that rushed through him at her reciprocation. That is what life felt like it was becoming. He was no longer alone.

"No."

He would have left her alone, but she didn't give him the chance.

"I don't want to because I'm afraid," she clarified, swallowing the truth. "I'm not used to my past coming into the present, especially parts of my life that I've buried. It feels like-"

"- _Night of the Living Dead_?" Will guessed. She scoffed, rolling her eyes, but when he glanced at her, she wore a faint smile. Should I be worried for you?"

"No," she said with a shake of her head. "She's an. . . an _ex_."

Will's eyebrows rose. He knew he shouldn't have been surprised. He always figured that he wasn't her first relationship. He couldn't picture her with very many people. He couldn't picture himself with many people, but there was something oddly inviting about her. It was her touch. The complete relief it gave. It was a feeling akin to a blessing. He felt as though he was new. He wasn't the only one familiar to that touch. Abigail felt it. It was something that Alana voiced her concern over.

"She sees Bella as some sort of. . . angel. I don't think its good for her," Alana had told him.

Will knew Alana was wrong.

Bella wasn't an angel in Abigail's eyes, but she did carry an unconditional love that felt almost heavenly. He could imagine how that love could attract others.

"Do you remember how I said I dropped out of college?" she asked, knowing full well that he did. That night was engraved in his memory. He could still remember the taste of her lips, the feeling of her cheeks, cold from drying tears. "I was dating her at the time. I had been falling apart in the absence of my brother. For a while, I was okay. She made it better, but. . . I guess I wasn't strong enough, I wasn't ready to let go."

"You were young," Will tried to reason with. He knew guilt too well to not recognize it in her voice.

"I know- _knew_ he was alive. I just thought. . . I was falling apart in more ways than one. Our relationship was the only thing keeping me together, and eventually that fell apart too."

Will couldn't tell if he should be thankful or sorry.

"The night we broke up was bad. I got a call from a random number. It was just someone breathing, but I could have sworn that it was him," her voice fell quiet, breathy. The look in her eyes was far away again, lost in hopes she would never let slip away. He gave her hand a squeeze, pulling her back to him. "I was so hung up on that. I could tell that she wanted me to move on, so I kept it to myself and. . . That night we had an argument and everything fell apart. . . I just left."

"It was your breaking point?" he guessed.

"It was more freeing than that," she said, lips pursing together in confusion. "I guess I took it, breaking up, as having no reason to stay. She told me to go - it was. . . I was finally free. I didn't look back. I didn't think - I never thought. . ."

"You never thought you would have to see her again."

The look in her eyes when she saw Alejandra. The love, fear, confusion, and heartbreak made sense.

In the silence that followed his realization, Bella panicked. She squeezed his hand tightly.

"Will, I would never do that to you. I'm not scared of. . . I don't know what," she sighed, frustrated. Will wouldn't deny it. A part of him, for a second, questioned if she was afraid of intimacy. Perhaps she still was, but the thought died quickly. She wouldn't have stayed as long as she had if she feared intimacy more than she cared for him. "Things are different now. I have a life here. I've let go enough of my brother's memory and I have. . . I have a family, people I love and care about. I have a home. I have you."

He took his eyes off the road, for just a minute, to look her in the eyes. The sincerity was clear as still water. She loved him. She loved him unconditionally.

She had a family.

She had a home.

She had him.

When they got back home, they walked together, arm in arm, to the front door and inside where they were greeted with eager dogs. They shared a smile and spent the afternoon trying to relax, to take their mind off of work, off of their fears. As day faded into night, they lounged in the living room and did what couples did: read, watched good and bad films, listened to music, and lied still. That night, she laid her head on his chest as she often did, her arms around his abdomen, holding onto him tightly. She was so afraid, even then. She didn't want to lose Will, to lose the life she made, to false hopes and dreams based on memories.

"I. . ."

She didn't finish, only looking up at him as he ran his fingers through her hair, not strong enough to say a truth that had been lingering in her heart for so long. He understood. And so, he gave her a reassuring smile, placing a kiss on her head when she laid it down on his chest once more. After an hour of her restlessness, she fell asleep, her heart lining up with his slow and steady tempo.

The next morning, Will was called away for his case. "The Angel Maker", he called it when he came back. She just spent the day pouring over her own case to no avail, too distracted by memories. Days passed by, some of which she briefly went into town, but most at home, too afraid to go back to Quantico. Days became weeks. When she was stuck, she would look around, searching for a clue as if it could be found like lost keys. Yet, when she looked around the house, her home, she couldn't help but compare it to the one she used to have with Alejandra.

She didn't call it a home.

She didn't live there. All she had were a few insignificant things of hers lying around, things so unimportant that she couldn't recall the look of them. Despite her happiness with her life now, she was haunted by the regret of what she failed to do in the past. Sometimes, when she closed her eyes, frustrated by the files of her case, she would see Alejandra's face, and the look of betrayal on it.

Bella never thought too long about those she left behind, save a few, but those people were the kind like her. They would avoid her too, more likely than not.

Alejandra wasn't like her.

The more she thought about what she had done to her former lover, followed by the frustration over not solving the case, she found herself growing sicker and sicker with guilt. In the end, she would sit on the floor and lose herself in the love and loyalty of the dogs. Her excitement became set on the nightly calls from Will or the occasional visits she paid to Abigail. She wouldn't have been worried until she woke up on the side of the road.

In her inability to sleep due to thoughts of Alejandra and the case, she took to running. She would run as far as she could, until her restlessness faded and when she felt nothing except the burning in her lungs and her heavy beating heart, until she could think of nothing but sleep after a long shower. The habit gave her a sense of control. One night, however, she went running and slipped. She fell and hit her head on a rock, waking god-knows how much later, having to drag herself home.

She felt like she was going stir crazy.

Will was the one to suggest seeing Hannibal.

To be reluctant would make her a hypocrite. Still, she couldn't help but want to avoid "making an appointment" to see him at his office. It felt as though doing so would be admitting to a fault in her being, a fault to how good the life she made was.

So she didn't make an appointment.

 ** _Hannibal Lecter's House, Baltimore, Maryland._**

The faint sound of water splashing was enough to catch and hold her attention in the silence. The foreign noises, those not caused by her, took her by surprise. She could all but feel her shoulders rise in discomfort, lowering only when she glanced over her shoulders, looking for people who weren't there, noting doors when she didn't need them. She knew she must have looked like a mess.

Her hair was brushed, her clothes cleaned, but Hannibal, even caught off guard, seemed more put together than her. He wore a charcoal colored bathrobe with white lining that matched a white buttoned undershirt he no doubt put on for courtesy, his hair brushed not styled. Still, he looked better than her fully clothed. She wondered if the feeling of being out of place would ever fully leave her. She hadn't visited enough for her to worry much about it, though.

"I'm sorry," she croaked, wincing at her low and roughened voice. She sounded like she had a sore throat. Clearing her throat, she said it again to no avail. Less of a croak, but husky nonetheless.

"There is no need to apologize. My home is always open to friends," he reassured her with, passing her a delicate cup of tea.

"I'm sorry for wanting tea then," she half-joked with.

He had been making coffee prior to her arrival. His offer to share was declined under the fear of her heart might not take well. He had been kind enough to offer tea. She tried saying no, but he insisted. Still, she felt terribly rude for ruining what felt like a sacred ritual.

Everything in his life had a beauty and excellence that was almost cathartic in a religious way.

"Nonsense. I would still be happy to cook for you, if you so desired," he added with his lips curling into a tempting smile. It was somewhat infectious. She gave a faint smile, but was quick to look away.

"I should be cooking for you," she mused, trying to stir her tea, but stopping at the sound of her silver spoon scraping against the porcelain cup. "The FBI is paying for me to see you. I have yet to show my gratitude."

"Is this an appointment?" he asked, standing straighter, giving a tilt of the head. Even the slightest of movements were beautiful on him. At this angle, the light highlighted his best features, his eyes, his cheekbones, the slight upwards curve of his lips. Statuesque, the epitome of art and excellence effortlessly. She was too full of admiration to feel even the slightest envy.

"Am I still entitled to confidentiality?" she asked, lifting the teacup to her lips. Only when he answered did her eyes light up as she took a quiet sip.

"Of course."

The corners of her lips twitched, but she didn't smile, not with the heaviness in her heart.

It was a turn of events.

A few days early, Will Graham showed himself almost exactly like she had: early, unexpected, and distressed. Where Will gave into the feel of their usual sessions over a cup of coffee, Bella was silent, retreating to the back of her mind, hiding from her memories among them. She was a frightened woman. Hannibal knew better to expect a full change after their dinner. One kind gesture wasn't enough to earn her loyalty, only her favor. For that, he could forgive her silence. A little coercion was no stranger to his practice.

"You seem troubled," he states, looking her over as if he hadn't already noticed every possible detail.

"I look better than I feel then," she muttered bitterly.

As soon as the words left her lips, she looked to him, an apology crystallized in her eyes. He simply gave a forgiving smile, something he'd been doing more and more often. A smile was kind. A smile was welcoming. A smile was a sign of trust. These smiles they shared, ones that were between them and only them, were the beginnings of what he intended to be a beautiful delight, an exotic delicacy that he would savor for as long as he could. For as strong as Bella's eyes were, she couldn't see beyond his smile. She could see his pleasure by her actions, his forgiveness, his fondness, but she couldn't see the reason behind it. She was so very human.

"I think I'm cracking under pressure," she confesses after some time, her eyes transfixed on her golden colored tea. Her shame was tragically beautiful.

Her head was tilted to the side, slightly tilted backwards to where her chin, her soft, yet shapely jaw being put on display. Her hair moved away from her face, drawn back by the simple pull of gravity. She would have looked youthful, innocent perhaps, if her eyes rose, looking upwards for mercy rather than down. Her hands cradled the delicate teacup at the precise level where they could so easily be resting over her heart. In a long sleeved modest white shirt, she would have looked like a modern depiction of the Virgin Mary. Instead, she looked downwards with a crestfallen expression. The fine muscles of her left brow pulled into a slight furrow. Her lip held just a sliver of tension, looking as if she drew in a single breath, unsure of whether or not she should speak. Her neck looked long, elegant even, luminescent, catching more from the light in the window than those above her. It was her eyes that drew his attention most, however. With a dark, heavy-lidded downward gaze, an hazy, dreamy, intimate gaze that made her matter shame look to be the most mouth watering emotion of the human experience, especially when her gaze turned to him, an urgent cry for help echoing from behind her very own windows to her soul.

His name left her lips, sounding both virtuous and sinful at the same time.

When his lips curled upwards, when pride flooded his system, he realized something.

 _She came to me._

Whether Will suggested she come or not, whether she was influenced or not, she came. A part of her, no matter how small - though he was more than willing to bet that the part of her that yearned for his company was much bigger than even she had the courage to admit - wanted to see him when trouble came knocking on the door to her and Will's quiet lives. Their lives, the three of them, were beginning to weave together, their delicate strings wrapping around their wrists, tethering them to one another. He all but licked his lips at the appetizing thought. He was no longer alone.

"Well, I am glad you came to me," he told her, giving her a nod of approval as he moved across his kitchen, opening a drawer and procuring a box of recipes.

Having caught her attention, out of the corner of his eyes, he sees her set down her cup, leaning over the counter with curious eyes. His smile grows a little at the movement. He was a proud creature, and her attention, those big brown eyes drinking in his own movements, it made him devastatingly proud.

"This visit calls for celebration," he told her, giving her a look of appraisal. Her eyes narrowed suspiciously, but he did not miss the twitch at the corner of her mouth. She wouldn't be as narcissistic as to bask in praise. Humility was a trait she and Will shared, just as they shared under-appreciation; both of which he would use to his advantage. It was pragmatic. They could understand that, surely. "Progress," he explained. "Your fear is the backbone of your daily life." Before she could argue, he held up a single finger, and she obediently maintained her silence. "This is not to say that you are weak or disadvantaged in any way. In fact, I would like of you to think of it with pride."

"Pride in being afraid?" Confusion riddled her fair face.

"Pride in the benefits it has given you," he clarified. "You are careful. The things that have happened to you-"

"You don't know what I've been through," she interrupted, looking at him through an uncertain gaze, wondering if, just _if_ , he did know. He tried not to mind the look in her eyes, the sound of mistrust in her voice. For now, she was perfectly safe, if not more.

"I know your fears aren't irrational. I know that you have felt pain and suffering," he insisted, his hands stilling as his whole body moved to face her. There was nothing but honesty and sincerity in his voice. She heard the care, the concern in him, and she didn't know whether or not it frightened her. "I would advise you to look at yourself, your fears and what they have done for you with pride. Your fear, your suffering, it has served you well. You are alive, after all."

He saw how, for a brief moment, her shoulders rose, a fragile confidence building, only to slacken twice as fast.

"Fear and suffering aren't what keep me alive," she muttered, raising her eyes to meet his, a burning rage brewing somewhere deep within them. The anger, the rage, the passion in her eyes was delicious, but she quieted her flames before they could rise high enough to hurt anyone. She turned her rage into sadness, something to keep her quiet, to keep her safe. "I mean, I get it," she sighed, shaking her head and looking back to her cup of tea, still warm from holding it with both hands. "It's your job," she said, looking upwards, not rolling her eyes, but having might as well.

"What is?"

Her lips pursed, slight frustration in making her explain.

"Giving hope or something," she answered with, distancing herself by sitting straighter.

He was losing her.

"Don't get me wrong. I appreciate it. The thought that bad things - _terrible things_ \- happen for a reason or that they serve some higher purpose can be helpful, but there are other ways to cope," she sighed, looking to him with a forlorn expression. It was not him who abandoned her, that he knew. Yet, she felt abandoned all the same. It was more than her brother. He knew it by the way she avoided talking about the years she spent searching for him, in the way she never talked about her scars. Yes. She was abandoned in more ways than one. Which one was deserving of her loss of hope, he did not know. "I'm not like most people. I know that suffering doesn't always serve a higher purpose. Sometimes suffering is just suffering, just like how sometimes people are alive just because they haven't died."

It was a terribly cruel world. He knew that; he knew that she knew that. He only wanted to know how.

"And what is your view on a 'higher purpose'?" he asked. He would not try her view of suffering so soon. He had to build more trust, more loyalty. _Rome was not built in a day_ , he reminded himself.

"I have always wrestled between science and superstition," she admitted. He smiled at this. The only man of god he was, was his own. To call a "higher purpose" "superstition" was the flash of his own reflection, skirting the notion of a god one would call right and just in all things. "I was raised Catholic."

"How did that treat you?" he asks, returning to his box, giving her the privacy to confess. He found the idea tempting, to be her priest, to lead her, to teach her the ways of a life lived by his own god's doctrine.

"I don't think - it wasn't - I. . ." she stopped, taking a moment to collect herself. He wanted nothing more than to know why looking back was so difficult for her. "It was hard to connect to. I don't blame the people, the church, however. You cannot place divinity in the hands of humans and expect things to go right, I suppose," she shrugged. A hand drifted to her knee, rubbing it gently to soothe the memories of the bruises she earned from her grandmother forcing her to her knees to pray. "I won't bore you with stories, Dr. Lecter." He frowned at the formality. "I won't say that the church turned me from God. They didn't. I just. . . I don't know. All I know is that I want God to be real. I do."

Her voice fell into a whisper, her eyes shining with a tragic sense of hope. Hannibal imagined her then, a quietly abused child, waiting, hoping, and praying for a God he didn't believe in to save her, to save those she loved. He wondered how this woman who was so uncertain of God was more certain than most. It was a paradox, an enigma in the shape of a woman. This is not the first time wanted to capture her in the way any artist would. She would have been a beautiful subject of art, Renaissance art. A woman of guilt, faith, and duty. He imagined her to be the kind of woman that would draw those to the church, encapsulating all things human and heavenly, a paragon of a Christian, yet, at the same time, not at all.

"You would wish for a god that allows you to suffer?" he asked. She knew he didn't ask in an attempt to turn her away. There was curiosity in his eyes, the same way Alana Bloom looked at Will Graham with. _Professional curiosity_ , she told herself.

"If God exists, then that means the Devil would too. It would mean that there was a reason for all suffering, that there was a purpose to this hell." It would mean that if Hell existed, so did heaven, one where she would reunite with her brother.

"If?" Hannibal repeated.

"I don't know if there is a god or not. I only know - _I only feel_ as though death is not the end. How can it?"

The silence between them lingers, neither knowing what to say, but he is the first to recover.

"You said you thought you were cracking under pressure," he recalled bringing her back to the reason for her being in his house, in his kitchen. "The pressure of what?"

"What doesn't stress me?" she scoffed. The skin under her eyes weren't too noticeable, yet almost seemed prominent in her bittered expression. "The past has come knocking on my door, Jack gave me a case of my own, and I'm. . . I'm lonely without Will," she sighed, cringing at how pathetic it all sounded to her. Hannibal reached towards her, placing his larger hand over one of hers, drawing her eyes to his. He gave her a reassuring smile, one that she mirrored in her lips alone.

"Start with the first," Hannibal offered guidance with.

Bella was reminded of what he said before about Abigail. She thought him to be right in this moment. She didn't feel that co-dependency she feared would happen if she indulged Abigail. _Perhaps he was right after all_.

Nodding, she lifted the cup to her lips, taking a final gulp out of habit from her and Will's late night drinks. Perhaps this will be their own ritual.

She told him about the case. She told him about what she saw, what she didn't see, what she felt and what she couldn't feel at all. She told him about her loneliness without Will; she spoke of how lost she felt without him. She told him about Alejandra. She told him from their blushing infatuation with one another over study groups; their psuedo cohabitation; their accidental "I love you"; their crushing end. She painted the transition between their exciting start and their depressing ending; their first breath of romance to the terminal illness that was their break up. Everything.

He gave her the courtesy of being understanding. Not once did he look even the slightest judgmental. Not once did he avert his eyes, hiding from her. No. Hannibal wasn't the kind to hide, she supposed when she tried to still her squirming under his gaze. He had a subliminal pride, the kind that wouldn't permit him to hide, from her, from the law, from God. The notion brought her to discomfort, only relaxing once she took solace in the fact that he liked her. She refused to forget that this man, this beautifully sculpted man, was dangerous. How easy it was to forget, his danger, lost in the sea of trust.

When she asked him if he ever had a love like she had with Alejandra, he said, "No." He told her that he was fortunate enough to not experience the tragedy that was a terrible relationship. To that, she took and showed her offense. To this, he said, "Never had anyone hurt me so deeply that I came to fear intimacy in the pursuit of romance." It would be the second time she fell silent, lost in mixed feelings for the other woman.

"I don't blame her," Bella said quickly, closing her eyes, fighting away any doubt she had over that. "What happened between us, the fallout, it was because of me."

 _It was me. It was me. It was me._

"Bella."

"No," she said sharply. Her jaw was set, clenched with an almost defiant strength. Hannibal might have let the subject drop if not for the look in her eyes. The downward curvature at the base, the pleading furrow of the brow that sang of loss and a plea for guidance. She was too proud to ask for it, but he was generous enough to give it to her regardless. "I was the one at fault. It was me. I. . . I'm the broken one," she insisted with a single nod. "I was too messed up. Any pain-" she closed her eyes, feeling her stomach knot at the guilt of seeing the betrayal in Alejandra's eyes. "-Any pain caused was nobody's fault but my own. Her only fault in it all was placing her love and trust in me." Her heart began to weep. The only way to stop her eyes from following suit was to shut them tightly. "She was brave and kind and I _broke_ her."

"You do not know that," he argued.

"I know that I became someone I _never_ wanted to become." Tears were falling. " _Hannibal_ ," she cried, wiping her eyes. He tried to ignore the jolt in his heart at the sound of her plea. She made his name sound sacred, a devout follower calling upon her maker. It was sublime. "I hurt her. I hurt her just like I was. I hurt her in the way I never thought I would hurt someone. _Anyone_."

She wiped furiously at her eyes, her cheeks red with embarrassment and rage. She was angry and heartbroken, terribly guilty of abandoning someone she loved.

" _Bella._ "

It was his turn to say her name, letting it fall from his lips, rolling off his tongue, sounding of nothing but forgiveness. She was confiding in him, confessing to him. Was it not right to grant her forgiveness?

"She told you to leave," he said sternly, watching her now red eyes open. She sniffled, trying so hard to keep herself together. She should have looked a terrible mess of emotions just as Franklyn Froideveaux, a patient with severe neurosis, often was with her red cheeks, puffy eyes, a runny nose. Yet, the way she looked at him, as if he were the savior she were waiting her life to meet, he saw nothing of the sort. Bella blinked, not knowing when he moved around the counter, when he stood before her. All she felt was his hands cupping her cheeks, forcing her to look at him. She wondered if this was what Abigail felt. Lost in the middle of a storm, scared and alone, only for him to emerge, making time stand still.

It was entirely different than when Will held her. It lacked as much touch, yet, all the same, it was intimate.

"She asked you to leave. She _demanded_ that you leave-"

"I should have known that she wanted me to stay."

"Bellamy," he said once more. Her lips snapped shut. "You are not a mind reader." Not even Will Graham could manage that. Hannibal couldn't tell if he should be disappointed or grateful over that simple fact. "You are not at fault. Your hands are clean," he insisted, allowing his hands to slide from her cheeks to her shoulders, holding her steady. She did not flinch at the touch. _She trusts me_.

"I'm sorry," she apologized once more. "This isn't like me. I'm not. . . I'm not this weak."

She turned her head away, still wallowing in shame. He wondered who taught her guilt and shame, but disregarded the thought. It mattered not who created the faults in who she was. All that mattered was what he intended to do to mend those faults.

"Do not apologize for fragility. There is beauty in your pain."

She scoffed.

"Only in your eyes," she muttered. Her lip curled up with disgust. "To me, pain only feels of. . . _pain_."

 _Exquisite_.

 _The amount of emotion that resides in her._

"I think there's something wrong with me," she whispered. "I wasn't like this before. I was better at this. I feel like I am coming undone."

This time, he sighed, drawing his hands down her shoulders, down her arms until he held her hands. He gently ran his thumbs over the scars on them. He understood the significance of hands. Will's hands were rough, calloused, worn in with years of hard work. Anyone could tell the hardships he faced based on the thickness of his skin. Yet, Bella's, hers were soft, smooth. There would have been an old-fashioned femininity of her tender palms and slender fingers if it weren't for the scars that marred them. Her hands read of endurance, just as Will's had, yet her skin wasn't as thick. Her heart was so easily influenced by sadness, anger, pain. It was the kind of hands one would grasp as sweetly as to lure her into the dark. He could be that. Her most trusted guide.

"You have spent a long time avoiding intense emotions," he said gently. She would learn to find comfort in that voice if he played his cards right. "It is only natural that you would react this way when being reintroduced to them."

Her fragility, he would leave for now, appreciating it while he could. Yet, he knew himself. He knew her and what she could become. And that soft skin of hers would have to harden some. She would learn to go beyond her emotional and physical limits.

 _But that will come later_ , Hannibal promised himself. He felt his lips lift into a comforting smile as the pace in which her chest rose and fell lessened, as the redness left her face, leaving behind only wine colored cheeks, still flushed from exertion.

"Your fears from how it ended with Alejandra no doubt have caused you stress not only from her but also for what it might mean for you and Will. To that, I want you to remember all the ways you and him are different from you and her," he instructed brushing a hair from her face. "You care for him; he cares for you."

"And what if that is not enough?"

"It will be."

He would make sure of that.

"Go home."

"But what about the case?"

"Another day."

"Jack won't like it-"

"I am not FBI," he reminded her as he lead her towards the door, noticing how her steps subconsciously match his pace quickly. She was a chameleon of a woman. "My duty is not to Jack Crawford. It is to your health, to your becoming the person you are meant to become."

"Because you're my psychiatrist?"

"Because I am your friend."

 _ **The Office of Hannibal Lecter, Baltimore, Maryland**_

When Will Graham asked to see him, he was flattered, especially when Will called upon him before Bella could suggest the idea. He, too, was beginning to be drawn in, tightening the strings on his wrists that tied the three of them together. However, Will is also the one who put off their appointment once more, telling him that Bella and him needed to talk. It was a terribly lonely night, waiting in his office, watching the fire burn out, wondering just what exactly those two were doing at the exact same time.

He imagined them to be tired from an emotional conversation, one set forth by his own prompting. He imagined Bella stumbling through, trying to let her guard down for Will. He imagined that Will, given the chance, would climb over that wall, saving her from herself like a hero from a song. The two were desperately in need of hope, that timeless hope caused by loving and being loved in return. He imagined them, lying before a fire of their own, together. The reminder of his own solitude stung like a thick needle, digging into his flesh. Yet, he was still proud.

The two were growing stronger. In the days following the death of the "Angel Maker", the close of Will's most recent case, the two were once again together. What pleased him more was the way they carried themselves in the brief glimpses he had depicted through Alana's description. Alana painted them in a negative light, telling him that they were forming a "troubling co-dependency" on one another. Hannibal knew better. Both were not dependent on one another. Both could live without the other. In another life, it would just be Will as his sole possible companion. Perhaps in another it would be just Bella, somehow finding herself in his company.

Regardless of either possibility, the reality they all lived in was becoming more and more clear. Will and Bella were beginning to merge, keeping their walls high and far enough to not be touched by outsiders like that of Jack Crawford and Alana Bloom. They were becoming invulnerable to the attacks of others, strengthening each other in the other's moment of weakness. Nothing, however, pleased him more than to know that however high their walls were, however many people couldn't so much as catch a glimpse inside their world, he was invited in. A welcomed guest into their lonely lives. It was a gift he had given himself, one that came to his door, unwrapping itself when he hung his dog-hair covered coat onto a rack.

"Right on time," Hannibal commended, a proud grin on his face, one that Will sheepishly returned, if only for a second.

"Bella was very insistent on us not being late anymore."

"A relationship milestone, taking care of one another," he tried again. Will was just as much insistent on humility as she was when it came to things that did not include shame or guilt.

"One we passed sometime back. Since she moved in, she's been. . . _good_ to me."

There was a certain satisfaction in Will's voice. The fulfillment he felt was put on display in the way he carried himself. His glasses were pushed upwards on a respectable height on his nose, no longer hiding behind the frame anymore when it came to his time with Hannibal and sometimes Jack. His chest, more visible without a jacket Hannibal recognized Bella wearing from time to time covering him, was swelling with pride. It was a glimpse at what could be. Yes, Will Graham was still rough, but he was cleaning up. Hannibal almost wanted to expect him to change the aftershave he commented on in a previous session, perhaps even doing more than a simple brush of his hair in the morning. Yes. Bella was good to him.

"How has that been treating you both, living together?" he asked, leading the way to the center of the office where their seats awaited.

"Fairly well. She told me about her running, something she stopped doing after we talked. Thank you for that - talking to her, I mean," Will added, a nod of gratitude being enough for Hannibal in return. "My sleepwalking, however, hasn't, ah, solved itself as easily."

Hannibal doubted it would have. What was wrong with Will was beyond the damage done by his empathy. It was tragically physiological. The disappointment and concern on his face was sincere, as was his interest in hearing of Will's latest nightmare: his Angel Maker, looking at him with a face of flames, unworthy of forgiveness and mercy without his penance, something Hannibal assured Will he did not need. His doe and stag were so eager to martyr themselves. Something he would have to mend before he could truly claim them as his. What exactly they were to him, even he did not know. All he could determine was that they were the key to ending his life spent in solitude. They could be his friends, his family, or anywhere in between or beyond. He cared little for inane labels.

The only ones that needed to understand their position in relativity towards one another was themselves.

"Have they worsened since your case ended?"

"Only by a little more than they were before. I try to take something to make me sluggish in my sleep. I'd rather not scare Bella."

Will didn't mention how a few nights prior was one where Bella woke up alone with him gone and the door wide open with nothing more than knocked over things to tell what happened. She ran barefoot down the road in search of him, fearing the worse happened: some psychopath finally coming for him. When she found him, he woke with a jolt, having trouble recognizing her as her. Seeing her scared, seeing her in just a t-shirt and shorts in the cold with bare and bloodied feet, he knew he couldn't go on with just hopes of it ending. For that, he tried and tried again to treat himself. Sleeping aids, locking the doors, etc..

"The last thing she needs is to be sleep deprived. Jack has been pressuring her to find a shred of evidence where there is none."

"How is her case?" he would be lying if he said he wasn't interested.

"She's been drafting up possible meanings behind the killer. I have yet to disprove any. So far, she believes the killer isn't killing out of anger or rage, but is rather elevating these dancers to art. He's 'immortalizing them in the most coveted roles'."

Hannibal had caught a glimpse of the crime scene through TattleCrime. He almost felt an impulse to thank Jack for not giving her an ugly crime. No. This was a case she deserved. Something artistic, something that was deserving of those concerned with beauty and excellence. He could see Bella doing well with those.

"How does it make you feel knowing she is being placed in the same position as you?"

"Scared. Relieved. Both," Will shrugged, leaning back in his seat, looking up at the red wall and pristine white trimming. The office had become a place of comfort. Dr. Lecter's unconventional practice created another safe place, a place outside of the eyes of those who would judge him on what he couldn't control. He never felt the crime of being profoundly human under the watch of Hannibal. "A part of me still wants to pull her away, to tuck her into a nice life that she's been robbed of." Will was always careful about what he said or implied, just as Hannibal was with him. "Sometimes I wonder if things would be better if I never invited her out that day. I wonder if she would still find her way into my life. Maybe in another life she is happily singing and unaware of the gore that is working for Jack Crawford."

"Whether you invited her into your life, that part of your life, or not, she would still be exposed to the cruelty of life." The scars on her body told that much. What both would give to know who gave her them. "Try not to linger on possibilities. Savor moments when you can. You never know when those memories will be all you have."

She would not be leaving them soon. He would make sure of that as well.

There was once a girl who loved him unconditionally as well, and all he had left of her was those memories.

Hannibal was no stranger to loss.

They moved on. Instead, they spoke of the falling out he had with Jack, him threatening to quit, Jack all but daring him to.

Jack alone was a sensitive topic. In Will's and Bella's absence, he found himself drawn into their lives, their fights, their romance. It was a Shakespearean romance. A man who played the hero to a woman who couldn't be saved; a hopeless woman sparing her love the pain of losing her suddenly by breaking his heart slowly.

This was the confusion of love.

Hannibal knew himself. He knew that he never experienced love, understanding what it meant. It was a magnificent weakness, having one so intimate, so understanding of one's own heart that the lines between them blurred. It was a terrifying thought, to place his life in the hands of another. That was before he was tempted with the presence of two who could, with time, understand him, two who could blur the lines of who he was and who they could be. Yes. It was the greatest temptation: love.

He entertained the idea of killing them both.

Staring at the fireplace that lonely night, he considered it, being done with the risk, killing them both and continuing his finely tailored life. He would have feasted on Will's brain, consuming the mind of someone who felt anything, everything; he would give Will the courtesy of being paired with her heart, not fully cooked, bloody but tender. He closed his eyes, relishing in the thought of it. The most appetizing course.

He couldn't.

He felt electricity run through his veins at the risk of ending it, this agonizing loneliness. It was as disgusting as it was invigorating at first, to know that he would almost throw his life away, all he had ever done and accomplished, for a chance of being loved. He didn't know whether to curl his lip up into a snarl or draw his tongue over the bottom at the thought of becoming close to them, so close that where they began and he ended was indefinite. He wanted to free them, to draw out parts of themselves that would be impossible to find if not for him.

A god in love with his creations.

He wanted them to be enlightened, but by his hand and his hand alone. Because of that, he decided, Jack would have to go.

He was too enamored with both of them to let Jack ruin them. He did not hate Jack Crawford. He hated what Jack did to them, forcing them to their knees at the alter of justice, forcing them to stare at the blindingly bright rays of righteousness. He would gladly watch two of his best burn if it meant catching one of the worst. Disgusting was the general who disregarded the lives of his soldiers. Disgusting was the man who left a trail of abandoned, broken creatures. Hannibal thought it more than just to remind Jack of those that he left behind. He was unworthy of finding peace in Hannibal's eyes.

Jack was unworthy of the admiration growing in their eyes.

He refused to call it selfishness to want their admiration to be for him instead.

"How did Jack's disregard for you staying or leaving make you feel?"

"How did it make me feel?" Will asked, his voice drenched in sarcasm. "An awfully weak question for a psychiatrist," he pointed out. Hannibal simply raised his brows, not yielding, not allowing Will to get even the faintest of rises out of him. The challenge, though, was endearing. Will, seeing he was outmatched, let a sigh pass through his finely-shaped lips, his tongue running over his bottom lip. The action alone earned more of a rise out of Hannibal, his fingers digging into the leather armrests of his chair. "It made me feel. . . angry. Betrayed."

The look of shame on his face was clear.

"Jack is your chosen leader-" He emphasized the choice in the matter, giving Will a reminder that he had a chance to choose differently in the future. "It is only natural that the loyalty that comes with having a leader is one that promises safety and respect in return. Your feelings of betrayal are not invalid. You trusted Jack to protect you from getting too close, and to stay with you if you do. His abandonment, his disregard for your mentality is a betrayal."

 _"Are you trying to alienate me from Jack Crawford?"_

Will's words are sharp, but his lips betray him. Though he glared at Hannibal through the narrow shape of untrusting eyes, his lips are relaxed, parted with gentle breaths passing between them with a serenity that was found often in sleep. He could not hide it. He trusted Hannibal enough to not believe that Hannibal would do such a thing: alienate him. For that, Hannibal was grateful.

"I am simply trying to help you understand yourself."

 _I know you better than you know yourself._

As if hearing his thoughts, as if he were dwelling in Hannibal's head just as Hannibal did in his, his eyes lifted from the ground. His blue eyes were wide, searching, looking at Hannibal as if he were the light at the end of the tunnel, a bright and silvery moon on the darkest of nights. He looked at Hannibal as any and every man wished to be looked at: with an unprecedented rush of emotion, shamelessly understanding. And, for just a flicker of a second, Hannibal returned that look, that unpredictable rush of emotion.

Just as quickly, they fell back into their skin. It was a transient attraction, but the feeling did linger beyond simple attraction.

"And you can do that?" Will asked, already knowing the answer, but refusing to let himself admit it. He knew himself so well in moments like these, with brown eyes staring back at him, with the tumultuous waters of life stilling with the gentle cadence of the voice of someone he cared for. He blinked a few times, drawing differences between the brown eyes, the two with them, and what they meant to him.

Both had dark shades, but neither's was endless. There was depth, but it was not endless, it was not untouchable. Their eyes were warm, welcoming, feeling of what he could only describe as home. They felt safe. This is where their similarities ended. Their shape was different. One carried the wrinkles of a longer life; the other held a youthful smoothness, even with a bold smile. Then there was their wine colored eyes. His was of an old wine, more transparent, honest, with golden shades. Her's, however, was of a young wine, more opaque, harder to navigate, with deeper and darker hues. Both were impossibly intoxicating.

Will tried swallowing the feeling.

"I believe that you are already in the process of discovery. Bella has proven that enough."

They both think of a time before her, a time that seemed so far away, a memory so distant that it might be mistaken as a dream.

"Whilst I might not encourage your relationship with Jack to fester-" Jack Crawford would allow Will to deteriorate, whether he admitted it or not. "I can encourage you to further grow your relationship with Bella." There was something so natural about associating her with growth. She brought out the life in others, an invigorating will to live. She inspired that in Will, in Abigail, in _him_.

Will's eyes flickered beyond him, looking at the pale off-white door, seeing beyond that, finding that place he and her made and called "home".

"Few have the luxury of finding happiness as you. It is not wrong to indulge in your happiness."

 ** _Will Graham's House, Wolftrap, Virginia_**

They lied in bed silently, his arm around her, holding onto her dearly, just as she held onto him, her fingers curly, grasping, at the fabric of his shirt. His thumb drew patterns on the skin of her waist, left bare by her shirt riding up when she settled down against him. She closed her eyes, listening, letting herself find comfort in the sound of his heart beating. An hour ticked by and they both lingered, pondering on the question of what love was and what it meant to them.

They both thought of the women that left them in what felt like love - or what they thought was love.

They both remembered the feeling of sweaty palms and their hearts beating so fast that it almost felt as though the little organ would give out. They thought of that time, of Alejandra, of Alana, and they think of the "now". They thought of this moment, this sweet feeling of comfort and home, and they both wondered if they ever truly knew what love meant.

This love, their love, was the most intimate.

They knew it when she looked up at him, when he looked down at her, when their eyes met, finding each other, as they always seemed to. They knew it when a smile came onto their faces with just a simple look at one another. They knew it by the softhearted simple pleasure that came with just being near one another. They knew this was what love was. Knowing that, when Will looked down at her, he let a breath, an unbelievable sigh pass through his lips, gazing at this woman he was so lucky to find.

She loved him.

He heard Hannibal's words echoing in his mind, telling him that this love was not a common love, that this love was something worth indulging. He heard the gravity of that truth, and he placed a kiss on her forehead, feeling impossibly strong when she all but melted into his touch.

When he pulled away, she lifted her head again, her lips parted with a loss of words. She wondered if there were there any words that could truly capture the feeling in this moment. She shuddered, closing her eyes tightly and holding onto him tightly, so very afraid of losing this. She thought she had given up praying long ago, but there she lied, praying that this would last, that this dream that felt so real would last.

Everything felt right. In his arms, surrounded by their strays, warm in their house - their _home_. She allowed herself to enjoy it. She let her fragile heart beat, basking in the feeling of to love and to be loved in the way they both deserved. And, all of a sudden, her eyes opened, so moved by an epiphany that she almost felt the need to cry. A tear slipped from an eye, falling onto his shirt, catching his attention.

She was not afraid.

She loved him.

He loved her.

"I love you," she whispered.

Will blinked a few times before it hit him. They never said it before. Yes. They loved each other. _Yes_ , they understood that, yet neither said it.

"You don't have to say it back," she whispered after a moment of silence. Her heart didn't waver with heartbreak over him not saying it back. She knew better than anyone else how terrifying it must be to entrust someone else with their heart, pleading, begging them not to break it. "I just. . . I wanted you to know that I-"

Just like that night in that hotel, she felt his lips on hers, tasting sweet, yet salty with tears.

 _Just like that night._

It was long. It was sweet. It was loving.

She felt loved, not needing the words to prove it.

And so, when he pulled away, she felt a happy tear slip down her cheek as a hopeless smile bloomed onto her blushing face. He truly was her happiness. So, she said it again, making up for all the times she didn't.

"I love you."

Now, he was smiling, just as hopelessly, at her.

"I _love_ you."

She was laughing, so filled with joy, relief, and so much more.

It was infectious.

"Will Graham," she began, sitting up, through a breathy laugh, recovering from her confession.

"Bellamy Bennet," he said back, sitting up to look her directly in those eyes like wine.

"I wouldn't mind spending my life like this."

"Like this?" he asked, knowing the answer, but needing to hear it.

"With you," she said, barely above a whisper.

Will let it sink in for a moment, blinking slowly as his heart steadies quickly. There was such a wholesomeness to this, he realized. This moment, he realized that this was the best part of his life so far. Her. And so, he placed a hand on her wrist, and in a fluid motion, he pulled her back, them falling into the mattress, where they lied moments before. He gazed up at her delighted expression. She was glowing.

With his own excited smile, he held her by the waist, gently rolling them over until she was under him, _giggling_ at the surprise.

 _She is beautiful._

"Here," he said, nodding, looking around at their house, at the life they built together.

"Here?" she repeated.

 _It's beautiful_.

When he looked back at her, seeing her loving eyes looking back at him, hair sprawled out over a pillow she substituted him with most nights, he felt the urge to kiss her once more. He doesn't. Instead, he let his hand, the one on the arm not baring his weight, slip behind her head, his fingers curling into her hair, still damp from her shower. He took one deep breath, just as she had.

"I wouldn't mind spending the rest of my life _here_ ," he agreed, looking only at her. The house could be swapped out. His home wasn't in the walls. It was with her. It was so simple, he wondered how he missed it in all the time they've been together.

"With me?" she asked, her smile softening with the seriousness of what he was saying.

Will swallowed a brave lump in his throat; he nodded all the same.

"With you," he confirmed. It was then that he leaned forward, his eyes falling shut, just as hers did. And, just before their lips met, so close that she could feel his breath, he makes his own confession. "Because I love you."

Quickly, their lips met. Her fingers tangled into his curls, his in hers, their lips moving as one.

The tenderness, the sweetness of the moment fades into something else.

Something far more simple to understand, yet enriched, complex by what they made it from.

She felt his hands on her hips. He felt her fingers curl into the back of his shirt and her legs move, shifting, lifting until they were wrapped around his waist, her lips never leaving his until her hands found their way to his shoulders. She didn't push, yet he pulled away all the same.

Time stopped.

It was just her, her looking at him through heavy lidded eyes, so undeniably in love.

She nodded, giving him the permission he needed.

He leaned back down, their lips just grazing each other's when his phone rang.

The loud and blaring tone startled them enough for him to pull away, blinking in confusion, recovering from how this moment, _their_ moment, vanished.

Bella was quick, reaching for his phone on the nightstand.

A distressed frown came on her face.

"It's Jack."

Will would have told her to ignore it if he didn't know any better. Jack never called this late if it wasn't serious.

He moved off of Bella, sitting up straight with his back to her, drawing the phone to his ear, answering it.

Few words were exchanged.

The only words that left him were a "yes", then a "what", then a "when", and then a grave "okay".

When he hung up, he turned back towards Bella, all that happiness gone, lost in worry.

"What happened?"

"Jack says we might have found the Chesapeake Ripper."

She didn't recognize the name, and he knew it by the look on her face.

He swallowed, closing his eyes, trying to hide from the nightmare to come, silently wishing he didn't answer the phone, that he just took one night for himself.

 _"A serial killer. . . They think he took another victim."_

* * *

 _ **So, I know I said that there would be more on chasing the killer and**_ _ **Abel Gideon and Frederick Chilton, but I got carried away. However, I guarantee that they will be in the next chapter.**_

 _ **Right now, we are, technically, episode six of season one, as far as the television timeline goes.**_ _ **I know. I should probably be going faster, but I just feel like I need to invest in these moments before I pick up the pace. Needless to say, things are going to get a little darker, a little sharper, and a little more. . . revealing? You'll**_ _ **get a bit more on Bella (God,**_ _ **I'm going to have a so much fun writing the next chapter) and her past (spoiler, but not really, it's rough. She's seen some stuff).**_

 _ **Also, I hope you guys don't mind the hannigram in this chapter. Yes, when I made this fic, I did know I wanted it in here. I love hannigram and as you know,**_ ** _"You can't control with respect to whom you fall in love." Besides,_** ** _I feel like that's entirely Hannibal to be infatuated with two. I mean, if you've seen the third season and that one part where Anthony Dimmond (bless my sweet and unfortunate poet) asks Hannibal and Bedelia,_** ** _"Is this that kind of party?" Insinuating a rather, ah, shall we say less than conventional activity involving three people. Anyways,_** ** _Hannibal smiles at Bedelia, who just gives him a look that says, " Don't." So, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that, yeah, he's not going to have any qualms tempting them both._**

 ** _With Mads Mikkelsen's portrayal reflecting Lucifer rather than Hopkin's psychopath, and with the show's portrayal of Will and Hannibal, I hope you also don't mind Will's attraction to Hannibal. Of course, attraction_** ** _pales in comparison to the love he feels for Bella._**

 ** _I hope you guys enjoyed that by the way._**

 ** _Before I go, I'm going to tell you that Alejandra will be in future chapters - she hasn't yet filled her purpose yet. Although, I am contemplating how exactly I want her to exit this story. I don't know. I have a hazy picture of how I want things to come out, and that's likely to change. I mostly just have bits and pieces, scenes that I want. Don't worry though. I have full intentions to give you guys the ending you deserve._**

 ** _Once again, thank you to all who reviewed! Seriously, it makes all the difference in the world. And don't think for a second that I don't take them to heart! I do! To those who have reviewed or will, I see you and I recognize you and honestly, I wouldn't be here without you._**

* * *

 ** _ANNOUNCEMENTS (I guess. . .):_**

 ** _1) Okay, so I have a Game of Thrones/A Song of Ice and Fire fic that's coming together. I just started writing and it kinda just came together. If anyone is interested in that, hmu. I'm still weighing if I should put it out here. I mean, I'm not exactly experienced with writing and I wouldn't want to do injustice to it, especially since the genre is different than Hannibal._**

 _ **2) The rating will probably change to "M". However, if anyone has concerns, please don't hesitate to voice this. I am not like Hannibal. I am very susceptible to even the slightest influence.**_


	11. Chapter 11

**All rights to Hannibal (TV) belong to NBC.**

 **This chapter is dedicated, once again, to** **LisaxDeanshipper97** **and** **MariDark for being my consultants and confidants on this fanfiction.** **Also, special thanks to** **YAYA Kitsune, Twelia, CaptainMC, Sanja,** **Guest, LaylaBrangwin and to all who favorited and added this story to your alerts. I love you guys. Seriously, don't think that I don't know your usernames by now. I've read and reread your words. They strengthen and motivate me to not give up writing. So, thank you for helping me pull through.**

 **Finally, WE FINALLY REACHED 100K WORDS.**

 **Damn this story is going to be a lot longer than I thought, BUT I'm excited and I hope you are too!**

* * *

 _ **Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane,**_ ** _Baltimore, Maryland_**

The snow was thick. More than a foot high, a sea of white surrounded the hospital, a daunting, sharp edged building with what would have been an inviting temple front, had it not been the cold, bare trees on either side. Standing at the face of the building, before the smooth, ivory colored steps, baring witness to this place, this cold and uninviting place that was able to feel so dark despite bathing in the sun, she couldn't help but feel the hair on the back of her neck rise, her skin prickling with unease.

Something was not right.

Her eyes swept over the sides of the building, marking every single crystalline window in sight. None of them were small, none of them baring heavy iron bars meant to keep the criminals in and the rest of the world out. It was both a relief and a source of discontent. She knew the kind of people they kept locked away in the hospital, the things they did to earn a place there. It was an architectural beauty, complete with even an almost religious dome like structure atop an entablature at the head of the building, a crowning jewel the building's composition. It was too beautiful of a place to be for the "criminally insane".

The inside betrayed the external.

Just beyond the front doors was what felt like a hall of mirrors, brutally cold and suspiciously clean. Every surface was of a dull shade, making every reflection look devoid of any life. Light came from above or streaming in from windows, clear and crisp particles of dust dancing in the air as though time slowed. This place felt of a prison. As soon as she realized this, her eyes wandered back to the front doors as a feeling of distrust rose within. There were no bars of decaying metal on the door, but nonetheless it seemed impossible to leave after it slammed shut.

She regretted not wearing running shoes. As her eyes swept over the entrance hall, she felt a thousand and one eyes on her, yet she found none. Her skin prickled, hair rising on the back of her neck. Instinctively, she lightly kicked at the floor, testing its grip, the question of running or hiding sounding in the back of her mind where even she did not hear it. All she did was blink. Once. Twice. Thrice. On the third blink, a jolt ran through her at the sound of footsteps echoing down from the left hand hall. Her eyes were draw to the sound like a frightened animal's did at the sound of a snap of a twig or rustle of leaves. Something felt amiss. Something felt undeniably _wrong_.

Yet, there was nothing there but a man. Not a monster that went bump in the night. Not a predator hiding in the shadows. Just a proud man in a tailored suit, gliding on the shiny marble floor towards them, her, Jack, Will, Alana. She was standing at the back. Despite being an inch or two taller than Dr. Bloom, combined with Jack and Will's heights and mass, she was hidden. This was where she took comfort most of the time, watching others from a safe distance, obscured from vision, unseen and unheard, but there all the same. She would have stayed that way if not for Jack's asking her to act far beyond what should be properly sanctioned.

It took Will having gone there and returned safely for her to consider going. She would have been content with spending the day with Abigail without the worry of Dr. Bloom's skeptical eyes finding them. Instead, she came, and here she was, feeling like she stumbled into a clearing for all to see. It was boggling to say the least, resulting in the slight hunch in her shoulders, trying to become smaller and less visible than she was.

He found her all the same.

"And who might you be?" the man asked, his eyes unconvincing as they sparked with recognition.

His head was tilted, craning in an attempt to look over Will's shoulders, his eyes drinking in as much as possible.

Bella stifled the urge to curl of her lips, wanting to bare her teeth, warning this proud man away. And he was just that. A proud man.

He stood taller than her, even when she straightened her back, by half a foot. He was shorter than Will and Jack, but with his head held high, tilted a little back as he preened, radiating energy, drowning in his thoughts of his own greatness. Her eyes raked over him in his french navy suit and dark and shiny dress shoes. He reflected his surroundings, screaming who he was before he could even announce it.

She almost wanted to stay silent. Was there much a point in talking, in making an impression, when he already decided on one?

"Special Agent Bennet," Jack answered for her. Today, he was acting as her shield.

His hands were soft, but his shake was assertive.

Insecure.

She appeased him with a faint smile and approving nod. The man - "Frederick Chilton" as he introduced himself - grinned happily, standing a bit straighter, preparing to snatch up an opportunity to bask in the glory of himself and what he imagined to be an achievement despite it costing him the life of a staff - a nurse with a husband and children left without a mother due to his incompetence.

"You are the shiny new topic of discussion among psychiatrists, Ms. Bennet."

He spoke as though it were a compliment, turning on his feet, leading them down the hall. She followed him and the rest albeit reluctantly, only by Will's all too knowing and irritated gaze. It was nice to know she wasn't alone.

"I cannot imagine why," she said, almost breathing it out, her voice carrying as though they were on water. Slow, soothing, unassuming.

"A young, striking, pretty woman who is appreciative, empathetic, and bares the scars of a victim as she acts as a hero."

His head turned, eyes lingering on her during his compliments. She gave no reciprocating emotion, allowing her eyes to dance over her surroundings, landing everywhere except him out of spite. She didn't need to look at him, to see the slight flare of his nostrils, to know he was irritated by the lack of response. "Of course, that is what others say," he went on to say, testing her with the idea of people looking into her, scrutinizing her. She gave no response despite the sinking feeling in her chest. This time there was a twitch of the eyes as he pushed open the door to his office, welcoming them in. He was quick to pass Will and Alana their clearance to interview the possible ripper. She was to be the last to talk to Abel Gideon; she was the most inexperienced; she was the one he turned his attentions to when Will gave him nothing.

"Perhaps you would like to wait here while they conduct their interviews?" he offered, eyes sparking with anticipation. Bella's eyes found Will. She could see it in his eyes. He would take her away, protect her, shield her, if she only asked. Her lips stayed shut, if only to do the same. Will was already under enough scrutiny. "Perhaps you can explain this talent you have to understanding most terrible crimes."

"If it would please you," she answered compliantly. This was a man without anything except his reputation to lose, and she had no grip on it. He was unprincipled, dangerous. She would be as compliant as she could if it meant sparing herself and Will. And so, she found herself seated before Dr. Frederick Chilton, reminding herself that all things living were finite, even this conversation between them.

Bella let the silence separate them like a wall made of glass. He could not touch her, he could not hurt her, but he could see her, watch her, examine her. She tried to swallow the rising panic. She knew her role and she played it well. People loved talking, and she knew this man was no different. She would guess that his favorite topic would be himself. As bland and tiring as it would be, she would have much preferred digesting his words than lie waiting in the silence for him to pass his judgement.

He was drawing her out.

She often played the silent roles. He knew that from the moment he saw her that she was a quiet one with watchful eyes and sensitive ears, yet held no intentions to use what she saw and heard for her own gain. She took her surroundings in, breathing it in, letting it become a part of her. She was enriched by it, bottling everything up inside. It was fascinating. She gave so much, yet betrayed so little. A paradox by design. He only wished to know whose design it was. Hers or another's.

"Might I see your notes?" she asked, looking over his shoulders, nodding to the wall of shelves, filled with journals no doubt containing sufficient information on his patients. "On Abel Gideon," she clarified, her eyes returning to him.

She could hide, respectfully, from his gaze behind the fine leather skin of a journal or a thick manila file.

He saw threw her request, but couldn't find an appropriate reason to decline.

A "special agent" was still an agent.

"It is a rather gruesome sight-"

" _Please_."

He handed her the file with little complaint to be heard, eyes loudly crying out in discontent. She did not dwell on his disappointment. She only skimmed through pages of careful writing, too flowery for her tastes, until she comes across the incident report followed by pages, photos and forms filled with information on what happened to Elizabeth Shell, a loving wife, mother of three, and beloved staff member. Bella could only trace her name, having a moment of silence, apologizing for what happened before she set aside the file, examining the photos.

She gave him the courtesy of not asking who he had take the picture, but he didn't return the favor.

"What exactly are you looking for?" He asked curiously.

She kept her eyes on the largest photo.

"Nothing specific," she said in a hushed voice, trying to speak so softly as to not drown out her own formulating thoughts.

Anything and anything he said after that fell onto deafened ears.

She drew out her phone, opening a pdf on it containing copies of the original murder. It was only two years ago when a man, Jeremy Olmstead, was killed in his workshop. His tools, every tool he had available, used on him. And like the murders that came before organs were removed, surgical incisions hidden by, what she imagined the ripper saw as, tastefully placed props. The tools. Jeremy Olmstead, like Nurse Elizabeth Shell, was robbed of abdominal organs. Shell, like Olmstead, was impaled by the tools and equipment available in her surroundings. Both were hit in the throat to stop them from screaming. All things save those were different.

"Exactly alike. Tragic way to announce himself," Dr. Chilton sighed with a click of his tongue. "I cannot help but feel responsible. I never saw this coming."

"You are responsible," she wanted to say. She held her tongue, instead she told him, "If we could see problems before they happen, we wouldn't have problems."

He only gave a faint hum of acceptance, leading her to close her eyes, wondering how a man as duplicitous as him found his way into authority over vulnerable minds. She pitied the criminally insane. They would find no redemption in a man with dubious ethics like him.

"You're right."

"Yes, I tend to be that," he smiled as she laid out the photos before him.

"They are alike," she began as she pulled up another photo on her phone, laying it out in front of him.

If he wanted to see what she did, he would see it.

"But I can understand how you can miss it," she finished, finally meeting those mossy green eyes.

Dull, dark, and dishonest.

"This is from _Feldbunch Der Wundarzney_ , the Field Book of Surgery. It was a woodcut by a German Renessiance artist named Hans Wechlin," she explained, using her fingers to zoom in, letting him take in each and every detail he could of the original. "It acted as a manual and guide to battle injuries. Most importantly, it gives directions on procedures such as amputation and-"

"The Chesapeake Ripper's profile painted someone with a medical experience, someone in the surgical field. Abel Gideon fits that profile," Dr. Chilton reminded her, his tone short and strained, losing the fondness as soon as she began to present something contrary to his own belief.

She swiped her finger across the screen to the photos of James Olmstead.

"This is the Chesapeake Ripper's interpretation, his own design, being executed. And these-" she pointed to one of the three photos. "-are. . . imitations. _Plagarism_."

Dr. Chilton's eyes snapped back to her, a look of betrayal in his eyes as he leaned back in his seat away from her, taken back by her forwardness. She did not shy. Instead, she stared straight into his, lowering her head, chin pointed down defensively, but her eyes read of an alarming aggression. He found himself pursing his lips, brow furrowing at the change in who she was and who she had been not too long ago.

" _The Wounded Man_ is your _Venus of Urbino_. It is aware and serves a purpose. James Olmstead is your _Olympia_ : provocative, aware, and assertive. It maintains a similarity to _The Wounded Man_ , perhaps even referencing and elevating it to the level of art as the painting baring the same name. Nurse Shell is your _Portrait (Futago)._ Sort of. There is nothing to ," she added quickly, her attention momentarily wavering to the photos. "Abel Gideon doesn't demonstrate the same level of precision, of artistic intellect as the Ripper."

"No crime is ever the same-"

"He gauged out her eyes, Dr. Chilton."

Her voice was raw, the first fully honest reaction he'd seen. The disgust, the horror in her eyes. He noticed the faint twitch in her features by the fine scars on her cheeks, her brow, the sharpness of her jaw when she clenched it tightly as she swallowed.

"He's violent."

"He's a psychopath, Ms. Bennet. He has been in my custody for two years, so forgive him for his lack of class. He is the Ripper."

She closed her eyes, drawing in a deep breath through her nose, letting it pass through her lips before she opened her eyes again, getting a look at him. He was not listening. That left her with two assumptions. Either he unknowingly made Abel Gideon a pretender to the Ripper's throne or he made a monster to bolster his reputation. She would rather him play the fool.

"You should hope so."

She fell into silence, and he was left uneasy, disturbed by the fierceness in her eyes.

It was a feeling similar to being woken in the dead of night, eyes wide and frighteningly watchful, sharpened with the fear of what woke him only to find nothing. He shifted in his seat, his heartbeat rising, but all that was before him was a woman.

And he watched.

In the time that followed, he watched her, barely blinking, out of curiosity, out of fear. He looked into her before. When looking into Will Graham, he found an article by one Fredricka Lounds that mentioned her name and a brief summary of the woman's view on her. It was kind in comparison to Will Graham's, but it sported a vagueness that was unlike Lounds' previous works. When he dug further, he could find nothing as far as the eye could tell. No social media, little to no record of her existence save a few newspapers that were archived online from her hometown. As far as anyone knew, she was born, grew up, lost someone, and then lost herself. Years later, she was a part of the FBI. He wasn't the only one with a curiosity towards her, but he was one of the few presented with an opportunity to catch a glimpse of her in person. He hoped to pluck out the pieces of her person, to piece them together and be granted a clearer picture.

He thought her to like Alana Bloom, but with a marred face.

He was wrong.

He was wrong because he so quickly took in her pretty face, writing off her slightly distressed expression as belonging to an innocent woman forced to examine things that an innocent woman shouldn't. He could easily tell why she drew attention. She looked sharp, yet soft. She was decently dressed. Unlike those she arrived with, she wore a modestly cut light green dress. It was inviting, comforting, and safe. She looked feminine. Her decent dress and wide-eyed expression made her out to be a good woman with little room for assertiveness. Then she changed.

She became like someone else, yet, all the same, entirely herself. Sharp, narrow-eyed, with a quarrelsome nature. She became strong before his very eyes and the second he recognized it, the second he subconsciously began to shy beneath it, she retreated to a middle ground. Someone placid, but only when not interacted with. She gave him a warning, and he, without intending to, allowed it to wrap around his neck, weigh him down, and obey.

It was a surprise, one nasty and biting, but a surprise all the same.

It was the kind of surprise that incited a hunger for knowledge.

She was something lurid in the fine details of her person.

Something puzzling, yet true.

He wanted to see her, but he made a mistake, one he hoped to be made right with his silence.

Time went on and as it did, so did she.

She moved from being seated across from him to the window. She didn't lean against the wall, nor did she rest against the windowpane. She only crossed her arms, standing a foot away, staring out in the distance. She tilted her head to one side, leaning back. She looked thoughtful, contemplative, maybe curious if her brows weren't pulled slightly downward and lips a little too tense. She stood there, like a statue, something to be examined and admired, but unable to be interacted with, separated and solid, but outside of time. She didn't move until she was called upon.

He gave her instruction, watching for any reaction, wanting to see if she would fearfully enter the lion's den with hesitant steps.

She walked steadily, head leveled, looking forward with a calmness that had him narrowing his own eyes.

She would shy under the eyes of a stranger in a suit (at first), but not a psychotic murderer.

She was startled more from the steel doors of the maximum security section closing behind her, the rough bolts sliding into place, than what awaited her and her alone after he left her side. It wouldn't be until he reviewed his recordings, video, would he notice her falter. He would see her then, the way her eyes flickered to her right, to the surveillance cameras, and to her left where cells, some that are padded and others are barred - something she notes - before turning her eyes forward again the second one of the occupants would look her way.

She didn't need any of them, save one, to know her face.

He was at the very end of the hall.

He was pale. Under the harsh flourescent lights, he looked sickly. There was a sag to his cheeks, wrinkles above his brow, and a natural downward tug to his chapped lips. He should have looked like a worn-in patient, yet he looked every bit as sharp as he could. His beard was trimmed, his hair brushed, his uniform fairly free of wrinkles and stains. His very posture, held enough tension to look straight, yet relaxed.

He didn't move towards her, waiting, standing still, for her to come closer.

There, a safe distance away from his barred cell, was a simple folding chair. She only looked at it once before returning to looking at him, a reciprocation of his own attentions.

He watched her, the way she carried herself. It wasn't confident. It wasn't fearful. She walked at a casual pace, taking her seat across from him as though she were an old friend.

His lips pulled upwards, excited by the "fresh meat" being presented.

"I don't remember you," he stated, eyes narrowing as he moved closer, wanting to get a better look at her. The bars only allowed him to go so far, but he could make out the little lines on her face. "I would have remembered a face like yours."

She remained silent.

"You don't look like a doctor," he deduced, noting the difference in her eyes and Alana's. Watchful, but no gears were turning. She was listening, but not picking apart his words, his actions. Just watching. "You don't look like an FBI agent either," he added. She was too relaxed for that. When she looked at him, she did not see a criminal. That enough, he could tell.

"Why do you say that?" she asked.

"So she speaks," he said, eyes lighting up at the sound of her voice. "I'm sure you can guess it," he challenged.

When she gave no response to that, still watching, silently, as before, he sighed, looking to the ground, feigning disappointment.

"It's your face," he answered, raising his eyes, looking her over carefully. Not a twitch of her fingers or shiver down her spine. She just blinked, slowly, as if she were not seated across from a known murderer. He couldn't tell if he was irritated or intrigued at her lack of fear. She didn't pay him the respected response that he deserved. His eyes flashed with anger, nostrils flaring briefly at the slight. He came out of retirement and they send in an inexperienced woman.

It was insulting.

"Big baby brown eyes with a sugar sweet smile and rosy cheeks," he added, too calmly to be comfortable. "I want to crack open your skull like an egg and see what's inside."

She didn't bat a lash.

It was infuriating, yet, in some insane way, refreshing.

He couldn't tell if he should be delighted or enraged.

"Tell me about your wife," she said after some time passed, her head tilting to the side with subtle interest.

He nearly groaned at the banal questioning. Perhaps he was wrong to assume she was any different than his other visitors.

"Why don't you ask about the nurse or my first victim. Surely that can help you work a better profile for whatever it is you've come here to understand," he said, turning on his feet, starting on a languid pace. Back and forth as he often did when restless.

"Your wife was your first victim."

He hesitated on his next step as his wife's delicate face flashed through his eyes. Honey hair, brown eyes, freckled cheeks. . .

"I killed her last."

His voice was hollow, his eyes distant, as he recalled the memory of Jean, sweet and frail Jean, as she took her last breath.

"You don't have to be murdered first to be the first victim."

Jean had looked at him as if he were a stranger, frightened, terrified.

"You betrayed her."

He turned his back to the woman, eyes darting around his cell and the pale sparse, bolted-down furniture inside.

"You cannot betray a wife you didn't love," he said, trying to find certainty.

"Didn't you?"

She couldn't see him. He kept repeating that thought in his head, but her words echoed louder. He knew she couldn't, but he felt as though she were shining a light on his dark places.

Despite his narcissism, he was always scrambling to snatch pieces of who he might be. He could never get a grasp on who he was, but he always felt fairly certain of what he'd done that night until now.

"I remember what I did to her," he said, nodding as he turned back to face her, an attempt to take back the power that he hadn't realized she'd stolen from him. "I brutalized her like I did that nurse. Not exactly, but I did leave her just as messy, just as bloody." Specks of red on Jean's pale face. "If I loved her, why would I not elevate her to my art?"

" _Your_ art?"

There was something too knowing about her tone, like a parent questioning the innocence of a child they knew was guilty.

" _My_ art," he repeated, anger laced through his smoothened tone. The interest and delights were long gone. "What are you here for? Like I told Will Graham: I don't need to convince you I'm the Chesapeake Ripper."

"I'm not here for convincing," she answered calmly.

His grip on the bars tightened. He hadn't known when he grasped onto them. He only knew he had when his knuckles turned white.

"Tell me about your wife," she pressed. "If you want to discuss murder, you can start with why you killed her," she offered.

"You want to know why I killed her?" he asked, hoping to get a rise, any rise from her. "I killed her because I didn't want to be married to her." He remembered how he ripped the ring off of Jean's cold finger. "She was a stranger I didn't want to be tied down to." He remembered Jean asking him what he was doing as she scrambled, trying to get away from him.

"She was the stranger?"

"Yes." _No._

He remembered Jean.

He remembered his Jean with her honey hair pulled back, lips pink, dark eyes bright with happiness as she caught his gaze from across the table. He remembered her nimble fingers curling around a mug, smiling at him as she drank her morning coffee, drinking to their marriage of fifteen years. He remembered how he thought, with bitterness, how clueless she was, how she expected him, her husband, her equal, to do everything she wanted with nothing in return.

"Why did you kill your wife?"

"She wanted me to move to Missouri."

He could remember it now, as though he were reliving the past.

"We argued all night long." He could remember him yelling at her. "She wanted me to move to Missouri with her. She wanted to 'start a new life', as if she had a life before then. Jean hadn't any friends. Only her family. Not much of a life to give up," he scoffed, trying to sound as if he didn't care. He couldn't hide the dull ache in his heart from himself. "I, on the other hand," he began, switching to something easier to talk about, something that had always been easier to talk about. "-had a practice, friends, colleagues, actual merit." Despite his words, he didn't find himself remembering the faces of those colleagues or the names of the awards he was given. "I had fifteen years of her asking things of me, taking things from me, expecting nothing in return except her love."

Her brow furrowed.

It was the only response, true response, he had seen so far.

"I'm sorry, Ms. . ."

"Bennet."

"I'm sorry, _Ms. Bennet,_ " he began, wry smile on his harsh face. "Did you think that marriage was about love? Unconditional love?"

It was the first time she looked away, averting her eyes, briefly retreating into her own memories. Even from the corner of her eyes, he could see her discomfort at the mention of marriage and love.

"I'll let you in on a little secret, Ms. Bennet," he announced, leaning towards her, his face in between the bars, cold against his skin. "Marriage? Love? It's not all its made out to be." He told himself that he didn't love Jean. How could he love someone who brought him so much misery. "You can get to know someone, their traits, their likes, their dislikes, but you won't know them. Not really. You'll only know the way they act, the way they respond. You can never truly know someone. My wife is proof." Jean never thought he would do it. Not even when she was clawing at his hands as he held down on her throat.

He expected her to turn away, to close her eyes, to take the pain of which his words should have caused.

She didn't.

"Gone silent again?" he teased.

"No."

"No?"

"No," she repeated, this time shaking her head. "I'm just thinking."

"Of?"

"Of how wrong you are."

His right eye twitched.

Her eyebrows rose as though she were barely bothered.

"Dr. Chilton has you written down as having psychopathy and being riddled with narcissism. What could you know of love when you can't see past yourself or feel beyond your own feelings? What could you know of marriage?"

He wore his diagnoses like medals, but he couldn't take pride in them. Not now. Now, they made him feel nastily ignorant.

"When did you decide to kill your wife?" she asked, turning the conversation back to the place he hadn't known he wanted to avoid until he was faced with it.

"The morning I murdered her."

He answered quickly, honestly, impulsively.

He knew it as soon as he said it.

He made a mistake.

He felt as though he were caught in a lie, a fault that he meant to cover.

How could the truth worry him as though he were lying. . . unless it wasn't the truth.

He was struck with doubt, so much that he didn't see her rise from her seat and leave him alone with nothing but his memories and an echo of what Will Graham said during his own interview concerning his need, or lack thereof, to convince others of his being the Ripper.

 _"Seems that's what you need to do. It's certainly what someone needs."_

The gears began to turn as he was faced with the answer as to whom would benefit from him being the Chesapeake Ripper.

 **Jack Crawford's Office, B.A.U., Washington, D.C.**

"I want you off this case."

"Okay."

He was taken back.

He expected her to fight him more.

He heard of what she told Abel Gideon, what he told her. She was showing a fire inside her, provoking someone that she should know better than to provoke. She was smarter, sharper, observant and willing to use her observations than he expected her to be. She showed a level of willpower that he thought he recognized from long ago. She was hardworking, loyal, dedicated, but not to him, not to the job. He was once again faced with who he wanted her to be and who she wasn't, all within a span of seconds.

"I don't want you to be put on the Ripper's radar any more than you need to be," he explained, settling into his seat. Looking around his office, devoid of any decoration besides his awards and a single picture of him and his wife facing him on his desk, he realized this was the first time they were alone, truly alone, together. It was hard to imagine her without Will nearby, but he had a lecture to teach, yet another thing that escaped Jack's attention: Will being a teacher.

"I don't think Abel Gideon is the Ripper," she voiced, not to protest his decision, merely a reminder that none of them were certain, save Frederick Chilton.

"Regardless, he is a murderer, and I don't want you getting too close."

He promised Will that much.

"You let Will," she pointed out.

Jack didn't need her to say it to know the truth. He was letting Will too close. He knew it, but refused to admit it.

"Hannibal is keeping a close watch on Will. Besides, I've given him a chance to walk away. He didn't take it."

He wouldn't walk away. Not like she would.

"If I can save one of you, I will."

"I'm not yours to save," she said quickly. Briefly, as she stared into his eyes, he saw something. Pain. "I can't be."

There was something raw in her tone. Something that read of experience, a painful and tragic experience that followed her just as he was followed. He almost thought to ask, but he knew she wouldn't tell. He knew she wouldn't talk because he wouldn't. He could barely stand to remember Miriam Lass. To speak of her, to merely say her name, brought pain, regret, and guilt to the surface.

"You work under my watch," he continued, leaning forward, resting his weight on his elbows as he looked her in the eyes, promising truth. "If anything happens, it's on my hands."

It was then Bella saw it.

She'd seen it before, but she wasn't sure until now.

Care.

He cared.

But not for her.

She would have to be blind and deaf to not know of Miriam Lass, what became of her. She could see it in Jack's eyes. Familiarity, nostalgia. He looked at her as if he knew her, who she was, who she wanted to be. He looked at her intimately, as if she held a piece of his heart, of his mind, of his memories. For a time, she let him. She knew what it was like to lose someone. She knew what it was like to look for them in anyone and anything, relishing in the feeling of their presence being so close, if only through a memory, a reminder. She knew what it was like to linger in an illusion.

"I'm not Miriam Lass."

She meant to sound strong, firm, distant as she had with Frederick Chilton. Instead, her words came out in a whisper, delicate, gentle, and apologetic. How could she be harsh when she knew the agony of grief?

"It was a long time ago," Jack said after some time, looking down to the papers on his desk. He understood it now, her affect on people. This knowing sight that she had. It felt unnatural, unnerving, yet, strangely, cathartic. "It's all in the past." He didn't want it though. He wasn't ready. How could he be?

"The past tends to find it's way back to us," she reminded him with a bittersweet smile. When he looked back at her, he saw it and was reminded of Alejandra Alvarez. The woman still lingered in his department, currently watching Zeller, Price, and Katz at work on Elizabeth Shell's body. He noticed her eyes always find their way to Bella when she was near.

"Yes, well, I can only hope for the good to come back."

"Me too."

He never asked her about her brother.

He knew it affected her still.

"Does it get easier?" he asked after the dull ache in his chest returned.

"What?"

"Losing someone. They say it gets easier with time," he added, leaning back in his seat. The line had been delivered to him over and over, drilling it into his skull, memorizing the words with hopes of it actually working. "It's been two years," he stated, looking her over. She had almost a decade experience with loss. She was the expert now. "Sometimes I feel like I'm better, like I moved on." A majority of days, he can go without thinking of her. "But then it comes back. It feels like its following me. It feels like-"

"-like you're being haunted?" she finished for him, brows raised unsurprised. "That's grief for you."

He sighed with distain, looking upwards as if he would find answers somewhere above.

"This isn't how its supposed to be," he muttered, shaking his head. His eyes fell closed, wanting to hide from the memories. Even with his eyes closed, he saw her. Miriam.

"No. It's not how its supposed to be, but that's how it is," she said. His eyes opened when he felt her cool fingers on his hand, gently holding him. It was a strange thing. He knew her enough to know that touching was something she often didn't do. Not with him. He knew that the majority of the time that she held anger towards him, resentment even, yet here she was, reaching her arms across his desk, holding onto his. He should have felt regret, guilt, remorse for all he had done, for how his actions have and continue to affect her life. Yet, for a moment, a brief moment, he felt at ease. For the first time, during all this mess of murders, of loss, of preparing for loss, he didn't feel alone. All that anger, at others, at himself, at the world, dissipated.

He understood it now, why people like Will Graham and Abigail Hobbs gravitated towards her.

She knew how to make a storm still.

"How do you deal with it?" he whispered, as though the walls had ears, too scared to be heard in his fragility.

She instantly pulled away, her hands slipping from his. He hadn't realized he'd been holding onto her too.

"I'm not a professional," she dismissed, eyes following her hands which folded and rested on her lap.

"How?" he insisted. "Please."

She looked back at him, lips pursed.

"For the longest time, I didn't," she admitted. He felt a wave of weariness wash over him. She had a decade of experience with loss. If she was still struggling, what hope did he have? "I didn't want to grieve, to admit I lost my brother. For years, I clung to hope." He was hit with guilt. It had been two years, and he'd given up hope that Miriam was alive. It was easier to think she was dead than to imagine what would become of her if she was still alive. Then that phone call came. And a breath of life brought back his hope.

"Your brother could still be out there," he said, if only to try and give her back something he lost once, trying to return it to her like it was to him.

"So could Miriam."

There was silence, both of them trying to swallow the reality of what could be if they were alive. Miriam would be tortured by a psychopath, a serial killer. He didn't know about her brother, but he could imagine it wasn't much better.

"Is it so wrong to cling to hope?"

"It can be," she answered.

It wasn't what he wanted to hear.

"You should get going," he said, finally, using his hand with the pen to point towards the door. He sat up, pretending to be interested in the papers sitting on his desk. Reports from Will and Alana on their professional opinions of Abel Gideon.

He heard her get up, the metal legs of the chair scraping against the floor. Soon enough, the sound of her footsteps followed, but stopped.

He looked up, finding her looking back at him with one hand on the door.

"Jack."

"Yes?"

"I spent years looking for him."

"My hope hasn't run out."

"Mine either," she admitted, thinking back to that night in a Studio 6. She still would swear up and down that she could feel it. "But chasing after a ghost comes with a price. A high one."

What price did she pay?

What price would he have to pay?

"So what do I do? What am I supposed to do?"

"Hold onto what you do have," she answered simply. "Life is precious because it runs out."

He knew that. He knew that all too well.

"Go home to your wife and the life you built," she instructed, an apologetic smile on her face. _Bella_. His Bella, waiting for him, all alone at home. "It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live."

He nodded, slowly, understandingly, as she opened the door.

"Bella," he called, stopping her just as one foot crossed the threshold. She looked back at him, genuinely curious.

"Yes?"

"Which wise person said that?"

Her lips blossomed into a toothy smile, the first full and proud one he'd seen on her. It was one of the purest things he'd seen.

"Albus Dumbledore."

He laughed, taking in a deep breath afterwards, feeling better. Watching the door closed, he couldn't help but shake his head, still smiling.

No. She wasn't Miriam Lass, but he still felt that compulsion to protect her.

 **Port Haven Psychiatric Facility, Baltimore, Maryland.**

Abigail was standing in front of her mirror, tilting her head craning her neck, examining her own reflection, wondering what others saw when they looked at her. Her hand rose to her neck, fingers tracing the puffy pink scar. With a sullen expression, she covered it with the palm of her hand, looking back to her face. Her face was unblemished, yet the scar beneath it felt as though it made her ugly, hideous, a marking her as a pariah. Still, she tilted her head, widening her eyes, narrowing them, smiling, frowning, testing out every expression.

She wanted to notice things _they_ would, to scrutinize herself, seeing every last visible detail.

She took a step back, turning to reach for her scarf when she heard the door open. She turned quickly on her feet, putting on an angered expression only to drop it as soon as she saw her.

" _Bella._ "

She moved one step forward, but felt the breath in her lungs leave her, telling herself to stay put.

Raising a single brow, she crossed her arms, faintly hearing the ringing of disappointment that loudly played in her ears for the past three weeks. She didn't even get to mention that Bella hadn't visited in what felt like forever before Bella gave her an apology.

Her eyes were genuine, reading of the same pain of being apart as Abigail had.

Abigail couldn't bare a grudge, even if she wanted to.

Dropping her hands to her side, she let the scarf fall from her hands. By the time it hit the floor, she was holding on tightly to Bella, fingers digging into the woman's shoulder, burying her face in the crook of her neck. The second Bella wrapped her arms around her, Abigail let out a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding, all but falling apart at the simple embrace. Her breathing was broken, shaky, her eyes shut tight, burning, overwhelmed to the point of almost crying. Yes. She missed Bella terribly.

"I was afraid that you weren't coming back," Abigail mumbled.

Bella froze, closing her eyes, apologizing again.

"I'm so sorry," she whispered, placing a hand on Abigail's head, running it over her hair. It felt as natural as breathing. Holding her close. "I'm here now," she said, pulling away, not forcing Abigail when she hesitated to let go. The girl looked like she was clinging to life itself. She'd only been present for a few moments. "Sit down and I'll tell you everything," she promised.

And she did.

Bella told her of all that had happened with Abel Gideon to her trying to find a new killer to dinner with Hannibal. Abigail cared most about Hannibal, asking what he said, what she said. Bella wanted to spared her of their discussion of their relationship to her. She didn't want to tell Abigail that her fears of Bella's distance were almost true. Abigail didn't need that. She didn't deserve to have any more fears and worries. Just this once, Bella told herself, she would keep a secret from her.

In return Abigail described her days while lying her head on Bella's lap, telling her about how she spent one morning just looking at old snapshots in a photo album of her family before she thew it into the back of her closet. She told her how she spent hours upon hours within daydreams, running from memories. She told her about how she wasn't even allowed to look at a newspaper, not even to do crosswords. She told her about how she'd been cooped up in her room since the snow began to fall. "Too many patients slip" was what they told Abigail when she wanted to go out. Abigail's only company were girls mousy, quiet, and too fragile for her to actually have a conversation with.

"I just want to go out. To have a normal life again, just for a little bit. It doesn't have to be long," she sighed, looking to the window, distressed. Bella knew Abigail wanted to leave. She always did. But never did she see Abigail look so longingly out the window. She looked broken.

"I miss all the stupid things," Abigail said bitterly, looking down at her hands as though all those things had been plucked from her grasp. "I miss going shopping. Just walking around, seeing people pass by, laughing and smiling and whispering to Marissa." Bella couldn't imagine that Marissa was good company, but she would bring her back in a heartbeat if she could, if only for Abigail. "I miss listening to music - new music," she added quickly before Bella could offer to grab her another cd of her music. "I miss seeing movies," she smiled, remembering how she and Marissa would always mix chocolate candies with the popcorn that was never as good as they wanted it to be. "I miss going to fast food places."

"I could grab you something-"

"No," Abigail snapped, immediately looking at her apologetically. "It's the place. Going somewhere where no one cares who else is there because, well, no one really goes to fast food places too be seen." She wanted to be invisible, but not untouchable. "I miss going places." She missed the freedom the most, the breathless and exciting feeling that came with driving with the windows rolled down or songs that would be forgotten in under a season playing.

She itched to sneak out, to climb the fence and go somewhere. But where would she go? Hannibal already told her that she couldn't visit anymore.

"It won't always be this way," Bella promised, not knowing what else to tell her. "I'll talk to Jack-"

"It doesn't matter," Abigail said bitterly, rolling her eyes at her own hopeless state. "Dr. Bloom won't let me." She couldn't remember it well. It felt like a dream, but she was certain it was real. Dr. Bloom yelling at Hannibal for even taking her out of the hospital to have dinner. Dr. Bloom ruined it.

 _She ruins everything_.

"She treats me like I'm fragile; I'm not. I know I'm not. The only thing that's breaking me is keeping me locked up like I'm some sort of-of prisoner." Abigail stumbled, trying not to think of how right it was. Her hands were dirty, but no one else knew. No one except Hannibal. He was one of the only people who saw her as she was. "She says I'm a 'survivor', but I know she means 'victim'. The only one keeping me from moving on is her."

"Abigail," Bella began, a scolding voice that Abigail could have sworn she'd heard all her life.

"I'm not trying to blame her. It's true," she insisted. Despite her protesting, there was a pleasantness to it, to a disagreement. It felt like home. Arguing with her, being scolded. It almost felt real.

"Abigail," Bella began again, this time having a firmness to her voice, one that didn't hold and was replaced with a tone light, yet tired. "I'm sure Dr. Bloom sees you as a survivor. Just the wrong kind." Bella was certain Dr. Bloom didn't do what she did intentionally.

Alana Bloom was lighter more honest than most. There was a goodness about her. Bella would have to be blind not to notice the rigid emotional compass that resided the woman's heart. It was one that Bella found herself envious of, that embodiment of safety and stability which screamed goodness. She had the benefit of being sharp. She was a professional, and she was, for the most part, good at what she did. She knew herself, her own patterns. Bella was only vaguely aware of her own sensibilities. She was analytical, assessing everything she did and said. And maybe that spared her from a lot of the suffering Bella had to endure. Yet, she endured it, and she learned from it, and she was better because of it.

Alana would not knowingly hurt Abigail as much as she was.

"There are those who live, actively making choice that lead to survival. Then there are those that are simply left alone, left existing, when others do not," Bella said, softly brushing Abigail's hair with her fingers.

Abigail remained silent, her eyes closed, brows furrowed, enjoying the feeling of warmth, of care. She took in Bella's words, letting her mind consume them, turning them over, trying to figure out how she felt about them, to find the taste of them once they rested on her tongue, and respond in kind.

She blinked a few times as if waking up as she realized what Bella was implying.

"What kind do you think I am?" Abigail asked quietly.

"I think you're smart enough to know I won't judge you for what you've done," Bella said, just as quietly, still combing her hair, not giving her a second to doubt her intentions, her place in relativity to Abigail. She was trying to be the person Abigail deserved. Still, Abigail was not put to ease, her body tensing, her heartbeat rising, fear climbing up her throat.

"That would make me a monster." Hannibal told her she wasn't, but, still, she couldn't shake the feeling of disgust, of revulsion when she was left all alone with nothing but herself to look at, to be with.

"No," Bella said quickly. "It doesn't."

"But that would make it my fault. What my father did. . ."

"You didn't do it."

Abigail felt like she had.

Tears began to form.

"I chose my life over theirs," she breathed, hot tears falling from her eyes, hand quickly grasping onto Bella's, which rested over her shoulder. Her hold was tight, desperate, pleading Bella not to leave her all alone. Bella's moved her hand, Abigail gasping, her hold tightening to where Bella almost couldn't move her fingers. Almost. She used that strength most forgot she had, curling her own fingers around Abigail's hand, holding onto her just as tightly.

Bella didn't need to think on Abigail's words. She wasn't surprised. Abigail wouldn't have the nightmares that she did, the guilt that she did, if she didn't have a choice in her survival. Finding this out, it made no difference to Bella. Her heart still cried out at seeing Abigail in pain.

"You were a child Abigail. You were scared," she whispered, using her other hand to run over Abigail's head, trying to console her. She shushed Abigail as she began to sob, grabbing onto her with her other hand.

"I'm scared. . . And I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry," Abigail cried, her whole body quaking as sobs wrecked through her.

"It's okay," Bella whispered, feeling her own eyes begin to burn with tears as she bent over, placing a kiss on Abigail's head, running her hand over her hair, trying just as desperately as Abigail cried, to comfort her. "It's okay. . . It's okay. . . You'll be okay," she repeated, shaking her head as tears began to fall.

"You don't know that!"

"Yes! Yes, I do," Bella swore.

Abigail only shook her head, turning it, hiding her face in shame, in fear.

"Abigail, listen," Bella said, taking a breath to calm herself. Abigail sniffled, shuddering, trying to quiet herself. _She was so afraid_. "I will not let anything happen to you. _Anything_."

Abigail slowly turned her head, not looking at her, but not hiding either.

"I'm here, Abigail."

Her breathes were slowing, hear heartbeat calming.

"I won't let anyone hurt you."

Abigail's hold loosened.

"You're okay. . . You're going to be okay. . ."

Bella would say it until Abigail believed it. Over and over again, like a prayer, she said it, slowly, gently, promisingly.

"I know," Abigail whispered after some time. Her eyes were closed, her breathing slowed to match the careful cadence of Bella's words.

Bella could only sigh in relief, rubbing Abigail's shoulder.

"I just. . . I don't want to be scared anymore."

Bella nodded, eyes on the door. She couldn't just tell Abigail to behave, to be good in hopes of an eventual release.

"You don't have to be, Abby," Bella said softly, looking down at the young girl. "I'll get you out of here."

And she knew exactly who to go to for help.

 ** _Hannibal Lecter's House, Baltimore, Maryland_**

He stood proud, head held high, eyes downcast, drinking in the sight of a masterpiece in the making. _His_. His hands resting on the counter, fingers curling over the edge, grasping hard onto the marble to the point of pain, he savored the moment. A measured breath left him, nostrils flaring ever the slightly, heated air passing through him, anger leaving him as he regained control of himself, refusing to fall pray to primitive and destructive anger that filled his lungs, burning him from the inside as his mind recalled the article, "How the Ripper Rips: An Exclusive Interview" by none other than the ambitious and serpentine Freddie Lounds. He almost regretted letting her live, thinking back to that day in his office, fantasizing about an alternate reality where he would feast on her lean meat, treating two worthy companions to her tongue baked in salt and served with blood red summer pudding for desert, a tribute to the material from which she built her fame.

But it hadn't happened. And now he understood, that fantasy was not going to happen. Not any time soon. There was no sense, no time to dwell on a dream that would not come to pass. Instead, he focused his energy on a new dinner presenting itself, revisiting the idea, the theme, of swallowing the tongues of those that allowed a slip of the tongue one too many times.

Half a week prior, he advised Jack Crawford; he quelled the man's worries about his marriage, his job. Allowing Freddie Lounds to run a confirmed story about Abel Gideon - The unknowing liar, the puppet who's strings were pulled by a clever fool. It was a slight he was not inclined to forgive. One he would repay in kind. With a shaking of his head, a disapproving tsk-tsk-tsk passing from his lips, Hannibal moved to the dining room, to the table, where a lovely bouquet of roses sat for the past few hours, waiting for this very moment. He smiled at their rich color, thinking of how well it would contrast with the frosty sugar that would coat their soft petals. A wine jelly, he decided, would better serve this supper among colleges than pudding.

There was music playing, a simple Clair de Lune. The sweet notes drowned out by a loud knock.

His brow twitched, his personal performance inturrupted.

To his delight, when he opened his door, he was greeted with the sight of Bella Bennet.

Her usual messy, sometimes brushed, hair, now reaching where he recognized her clavicle to be located, was styled simply, yet neatly. Under an open fitted leather jacket, he could make out a modest heather charcoal colored sweater. She wore dark jeans, thickened boots fit for a long trek through a multitude of environments. She looked fairly put together. Yet, it was her face that drew his attention, as it often did. Opening his door, he cast a bright warm light on her, a spotlight separating her from the darkness, illuminating all the lurid colors on her face from her dusty rose cheeks and the pink of her lips to the warmth in her eyes, an infectious warmth that touched his very heart in the way that they shone when she recognized his face. There was something vibrant about her gaze. Something all-consuming.

Snow, thick flurries, falling, kissing her golden skin, touching her lips like sugar on a rose, she looked delicious.

" _Hannibal._ "

His name left her lips in a sigh, her shoulders falling, lips lifting, brows pulling upwards at the forehead, a middle raised, full of relief. He felt heroic. He felt powerful. He felt as though everything that was stolen from his person was returned to him. She felt of a gift, the kind that he would put on display privately, for his own enjoyment, for only the utmost worthy to bare witness to.

His irritation was long since forgotten.

She turned, only a bit, to glance over her shoulder, watchful eyes scanning for anyone that might be looking their way. It was cautious, moreso than usual. Her right arm lifted, her hand to her neck, disappearing behind the curtain of her hair to scratch nervously at her neck. She looked excited, yet secretive. Her body was angled, one foot pointed towards the street that she looked down, her arm raised, body twisted with motion despite stillness. He could have circled her, admiring the curving lines of her body, the asymmetry, as though she were a Rococo sculpture. The details of her, the way her lips parted still from his name, looking breathless, was inviting, an invigorating breath of life in a still-art. A paradox by nature. Yes, he found himself missing it.

When she turned back to him, she gave a smile, one half of her face lifting into that same hopeless grin he saw often sported by their good Will Graham, the man having stopped by only a week ago, bringing concerns brought on by Jack's paranoia, his own growing distance with the woman he built a life with. Jack, with good intentions, separated the two once more, driving a secretive wedge between him and Bella.

She was unaware of the worsening nightmares, missing the daytime terrors that Will faced, finding herself miles away, not knowing what was becoming of him, trusting that others would watch in her stead. It brought him no pleasure in seeing her growing trust being placed in the wrong people. Alana was blind and Jack deaf. Hannibal exposed that; he exploited that. What he could enjoy, however, was how it was driving her to him once again. She did not visit out of missing his company. Not yet.

"Did you walk here?" he asked, looking over her shoulder noting the lack of a vehicle there, before she could speak. Her lips shut, her eyes looking embarrassed to the ground. The light struck her cheekbones, making them appear more prominently. He tried to appreciate it in the short seconds he found before she turned her head once more, facing him head on, not shying away for long.

She did not hide for long.

She was growing braver.

Frederick Chilton let it slip, his encounter with a "rather puzzling young woman". Hannibal recognized it quickly, the envy in the man's eyes when he proposed dinner. Hannibal held no doubt in his mind that the man wanted to discuss patients, boasting his holding of the "real" Chesapeake Ripper, unintentionally insulting the host, whilst attempting to pull information out of him about Bella Bennet and Will Graham. Hannibal was surprised at the retelling - though he knew Frederick had a habit of embellishing a story - of their encounter, his finding Bella Bennet to be "looking of a pliable nature, but capable of something much more devious - should she desire it." Hannibal held little doubt that there was a pliability to her nature, something hardened, malleable, and light. It was beautiful, to be able to absorb, to take that in which would break others, and be made anew. The capability of something devious, he was unsure of what to make. Deviousness lacked honesty; it was planning with malicious intent. He knew she was capable of manipulation, of what some might deem to be devious, yet he could not call her such. Her eyes were much too honest, her intentions lacking a violent and unjust intent.

Frederick Chilton stole a moment from him.

He saw the majesty of her becoming in its infancy, and he had the audacity to look at it with disapproval.

Bella was revealing herself, becoming undoing the ties that others bound her with.

She was freeing herself.

It was only natural to want to know what brought her to his doorstep, unapologetic and eager for his presence.

"Yes," she answered, looking as though she wanted to say more.

He was not disappointed. Change happened slowly, purposefully.

With a proud grin on his face, he stepped aside, inviting her in without asking for her reason for coming to him. She would tell him, on her own terms, feeling welcomed, feeling safe.

She returned his grin with a genuine smile, ducking her head gratefully as she stepped inside, eyes widening, drinking in her surroundings, appreciating the details of his home, reading the story he curated over the years for his own enjoyment. He could feel his chest swell at the way she read his home, _him_. Her eyes lingered on the differences that came since her last visit. He did not know if she purposefully gave a nod of approval, yet he gave one to himself all the same, feeling accomplished in a way he had not before. It was a wholesome feeling, one he discovered in himself, falling into a foreign sense of fascination. It was a natural unfolding, he found, the skin of his heart peeling away, revealing something tender, something longing for company.

 _She understands._

 _She does not know it, yet she understands._

Tearing her eyes away from the walls of his home, she looked back to him, longingly, traces of desperation and devastation within her own. Her lips moved and he saw them say his name without sound, afraid to ask of him. It was invigorating, knowing that she wanted something of him, something only he could give. He could see it in her eyes, the hesitance, the caution, wanting to trust him, but her instincts, her prior experience of others in general, telling her otherwise.

"I need your help," she confessed. "I didn't know who else to turn to-" His mind flashed to Will, wondering why she came to him and not their wounded empath. "-and I don't know if you even can help-" He could. He was capable of more than anyone could ever imagine. "-but I have to ask."

 _Ask and it will be given to you._

When he helped remove her jacket, he took notice of her scent. Despite the weather, she smelled like spring. Lemons, a mix of rosemary and mint.

And Will's dogs.

Beneath the surface, there was traces of Will Graham, lingering on her clothes, her hair, her skin. He left his mark in the same way she left hers. During his last visit, Hannibal could smell her on Will. The two did not leave his company without his own mark, be it the food he cooked or the wine he procured for them. They were all growing roots, leaving traces of themselves on each other. It was a dangerous thing, to leave his mark on the living, but it felt right. It felt as though his very life source was expanding, the more they connected.

"I would never turn you away," he promised, slowly moving towards the kitchen, but stopping halfway through the hallway. He looked over his shoulder until she could see one eye looking back at her, calling her to him, commanding her to follow. And she did, happily, until she reached the threshold into the kitchen, stopping immediately, looking at the line where the dining room ended and the kitchen began, eyeing it as though it were sacred ground and she was something dirty, something tainted.

 _You are clean, Bellamy_.

"I am afraid, however, that you've caught me whilst I was preoccupied," he continued, drawing her attention to him. His head titled back and to the side, welcoming her in. She did not move. "You have come here to ask of me something, and now I must ask something of you." His lips curled as her eyes narrowed, the wheels of her mind turning. "Would you like to assist?"

Bella's lips were quick, her head shaking.

"I-I can't cook," she stammered, thinking back to how long it took her to cook a decent omelet. "I'm terrible at cooking. The only thing I'm good - _adequate_ at making are strictly elementary level - breakfasts and lunch," she insisted.

"Then dessert," he offered. He would not force her to touch the meat. He wanted her to knowingly cook as he did, to know what she was cooking, who she was cooking. He wanted her to feel powerful from it. She wasn't ready. Not yet. No. He would have to start off small.

"The only desserts I know how to make come in boxes where I only have to add water, butter, or eggs," she scoffed, more disappointed in herself than upset with him.

"I can teach you."

For now, she would learn his ways, the Aristotle to his Plato.

"I'm rotten in the kitchen," she sighed, regretting avoiding her monster of a grandmother, if only to learn the basics of cooking. "I don't think I'd be a good student."

"Under my supervision, I am certain you will create something beautiful."

His words struck her silent. She was still, but slowly she approached him. She stood before him, waiting for instruction, a clean and willing canvas. He took pride in the sight, in the feeling of her trust, before he opened a drawer, pulling out the very apron Alana Bloom left behind, hoping to be in the very place Bella now stood in, being welcomed into his life.

"Turn around."

Her breath hitched. Blinking quickly, his words washing over her, she moved, steadily tearing on her feet until her back was to him. She heard the sound of fabric rustling, and then, swiftly, she felt him close. Her eyes fell shut and her breathing stopped. Seconds ticked by, feeling him draw the apron around her waist, she opened her eyes, turning her head, trying to look at him. Yet, when she saw him, eyes looking back at her rather than the strings he tied, she turned her head forward, feeling her cheeks heating up at the closeness.

Her eyes darted about the room when she felt his fingers move aside her hair before tying the top strings together. She could feel the roughness of his fingers against her neck, the hair there rising in anticipation. Her heart pounded within her chest, but she remained silent and still until he drew his hands away, until she felt the heat coming from a close proximity vanish. Then and only then did she let out the breath she held.

When she turned, she found him turned around, busy at work with his cooking. She moved to his side, looking at his work.

"Tongue," she identified, looking over the vegetables surrounding it. Mushrooms, carrots, tomatoes, and something green.

"Lamb's tongue," he specified.

"Six," she counted, raising a brow. "You're expecting company."

"Frederick Chilton and Alana Bloom."

He didn't miss the faint puff of breath leaving her, not happy with the names.

It brought a smile to his face.

"So what are we making?" she asked, turning her head to the sweets on the side counter. She moved towards it, noting how it was lower and separated from the main one; a small counter for smaller dishes. He explained to her the difference between that grape and others, the way the inside was the same as its skin. An honest grape. One that she could "trust". It brought a smile to her face, the lingering overtones of his words. Trust.

They were silent at first, save for his instructions. He was waiting for her explanation, waiting for that sense of bravery that lead her to him to return to her. Just when her heart would warm with certainty, a cold rush would wash over her. He would come to her side, guide her through the steps. It left her breathless at first, but she adjusted, adapting to him.

He was folding parchment into lotuses where all but her lips stilled.

"It's Abigail," she said, closing her eyes, still hearing the sound of the girl's cries. "She-she's withering away in there. All I could tell her - all I've been telling her - is to be good, that her being there wouldn't be forever, but I can tell." She knew what it was like to shatter, to break under the pressure of her own mind. "I can tell that she's coming undone."

Hannibal looked up from his origami, frowning as though he could hear her mind, her memories. She knew he couldn't, not exactly, but he could hear the echo of them in her eyes, in the brokenness of her voice.

He could see it in her eyes, desperate for stability, for clarity, for salvation, but not for herself. For Abigail. He could see it. The panic, the half-craze that was rising within, a compulsion to do something, _anything_ , for Abigail. It was worry. It was love. Not the same kind of love that she looked to Will with, but the kind that belonged to a mother, not a lover.

"I have to get her out of there," she muttered, more to herself than him. "She doesn't belong there," she said sternly, looking up at him again.

"In a hospital?"

"A prison."

Her lips curled back, a disgusted snarl on her face. The expression was not directed at him. It wasn't directed at anyone except the unfairness of life.

Her face softened, eventually.

"No matter what she's done, you and I both know that she doesn't deserve it."

He froze, eyes twitching at her words. He stood up, spine aligning until he, even at a distance, towered before her.

Still, she did not look afraid.

"You know."

Her eyes flashed towards him, lips parting, cheeks pulling up as she frowned.

He was wrong. She did not know of his involvement with Abigail. Not fully. He could see it in her eyes, the betrayal, the accusations.

" _You_ know," she threw back, shaking her head. Her left foot drew back behind her, weight not on it, but still ready to step away, to take back two steps for every one she took forward. Crossing her arms, she asked, "How long? Did you not think to tell me?"

"It was not my secret to tell."

She hated that she couldn't be mad at him for that.

Mad at herself for not being able to be mad at him.

Mad that his secrecy, his betrayal, was respectable.

"I'm sorry," she sighed, her arms uncrossing. "I'm sorry. . . I just. . ." She looked drained, tired, scared. She was riddled with worry and stress. "I want to help her. I _need_ to help her. I just don't know how."

Hannibal wondered if she was trying to save Abigail because Abigail shared similarities in herself, in her former self. He knows the two share loneliness, loss, devastation by a family member they once trusted, once loved. Was saving Abigail was saving herself by proxy? He considered the idea of "saving" her, earning the eternal trust from Bella, becoming this beacon of hope and possibilities for her. He soon realized, with discontent, her trust would only last for as long as Abigail did.

He wanted her trust, her loyalty, for himself.

Not for Abigail.

"Can you do it?" she asked, moving across the cold kitchen floor to him, eyes wide.

So willing.

He only nodded.

"How?"

He could not tell her.

"What did you tell Abigail?" he asked, inciting her empathy.

She frowned, displeased, but complied.

"I told her that it was going to be okay. I told her that I'm here and I won't let anything happen to her."

Her devotion to Abigail was beautiful. . .

. . . and tragic.

"You asked her to place her trust in you."

"Yes."

She was looking at the ground, unable to match the intensity of his gaze, but she could still feel it. His eyes.

"Can you do the same?"

His words slipped into her mind like smoothened silk. His voice close, intimate, feeling of strength, of invisibility.

He would give her exactly what she asked.

All he asked in return was faith.

"Can you place your trust in me?"

She drew in a deep breath, lifting her eyes to meet his, feeling like she was exposing every thought and emotion she ever felt and ever will feel.

She felt as though she were placing everything into this moment.

She felt as though she couldn't breathe, as though she couldn't draw air into her lungs, but she managed it, choking it out as though it were her last breath.

 _"Yes."_

* * *

 ** _ANOTHER APOLOGY:_**

 ** _Okay, so I know that this chapter was a bit everywhere, but all for a reason. Part of it intentional, the other part due to having written out a whole chapter and losing it all and having to reimagine everything. However, it came together, even if it doesn't feel like it now._**

 ** _Shoot. Even now, at this chapter's close, I feel anticipation rising from the center of my person, coming up through my throat, frothing at my mouth._**

 ** _But I swallow it because I know that I promised a story and I will complete it. I owe a story to you, my dearest readers, and I'll give you the one you deserve - or at least try to._**

 ** _I, again, apologize for another late chapter. My reasoning being a nomination of a personal nightmare leaving me stressed and unmotivated._**

 ** _But I read the reviews. Again and again until I remembered why I started this story._**

 ** _I love writing. I love writing something beautiful, meaningful, and, somehow, someway, I've managed to write something nice, something you guys enjoy._**

 ** _So, in the past few days, I pulled this chapter together for you, as both an apology and a thank you for all the things you, as a reader, have given to me._**

 ** _So, I'm sorry._**

* * *

 _ **ANNOUNCEMENTS (. . . kinda)**_

 ** _I'm moving along in the story, and I pray that my writing in this chapter wasn't rushed. I was hoping to match the pace with the feelings of panic, of the tensions that are rising._**

 ** _So you know how I say that certain things will be in the next chapter and they sometimes come true? Yes, well, I'm excited to tell you I know exactly where the next chapter will begin and that's kinda where we leave off: a dinner between Bella and Hannibal. . . and Frederick. . . and Alana. The rest is not as solidly centered as the first scene of it, but it will be more of Hannibal and Bella. Sorry to those that like Will/Bella, but he's busy. He's got murders to catch and nightmares to run from. Jack's trying to be a good man and spare Bella, hence why her murderer is her only job. A murderer interested in classical art? Huh. I wonder who could help her?_**

 ** _Just a little somethin' to look forward to._**

 ** _LAST NOTES_**

 ** _I hope you didn't hate this chapter. I really do. . ._**

 ** _I may not deserve it, but I'd really appreciate hearing your thoughts. You guys don't understand how much your comments/reviews, no matter how long or short, I take to heart and cherish._**

 ** _Plus, since I am a baby at writing fan fiction and clearly am much more impressionable than I originally thought, you guys can really shape this story. Think of me as driving and you guys holding the gps. I know my destination, but how we get there can be influenced by you and what you tell me._**

 ** _I am happy to say that right now, I've already started working on the next chapter. My motivation has returned to me. I was originally going to post this yesterday, but I was behind schedule since I didn't start writing on my birthday as planned (January 6th - shoutout to my capricorns if you're reading this)._**

 ** _POINT IS: Do not be worried. I'm not going to let you down again by waiting so long before writing._**


	12. Chapter 12

**All rights to Hannibal (TV) belong to NBC.**

 **This chapter is dedicated to to LisaxDeanshipper97, once again (Seriously, thank you for all that you do!)**

 **AND, special thanks to JasmineTheWitch, CaptainMC, Mara-Lethe, KrispyDragon, Insert cool name, twelia, Lady Avarice, SaucyAnts, and Kasanii. I've read your reviews (more than I probably should, but damn its good motivation, something I'm lacking waaaay too often to actually be productive in daily life), and I appreciate each and every one of you.**

 **Thank you for all your support!**

* * *

 ** _Hannibal Lecter's House, Baltimore, Maryland_**

They were seated silently, respectfully. All that could be heard was music, a classical selection chosen by their host, who sat at the head of the table, looking quite pleased with himself.

He was a king, watching over a kingdom of his own making.

To his left sat Frederick Chilton.

Next to Hannibal, he looked dull, small, envious. He might have looked swell in his tan Italian cut suit, but next to Hannibal, looking dapper as ever in a colorful English cut, Dr. Chilton looked bland, tasteless. Her lip twitched, noting that his cut of suit was so telling. Of course, Dr. Chilton would prefer heavy padding on the shoulders whilst Hannibal held little to none. He didn't need to make himself appear bigger. He towered before them all, a monument, an idol, a god. Dr. Chilton was the unfortunate man who attempted to imitate him. Bella couldn't blame him. Looking at Hannibal and all that he was, it was hard not to want to become him. He was easily the smartest in the room, not even giving them the luxury to spare someone else for being more attractive. His attractiveness defied age. It was sinful. Off, but too pleasing to question.

Beside Dr. Chilton was Alana Bloom, looking to her with a tight lipped smile. She, in her velvet dress of a dark purple color that matched her own elegance all too well, made Bella feel severely under dressed and inadequate. Her long hair was curled, her lips colored a pink that was as soft as her presence was. The color against her flawless skin, made her look youthful, more _beautiful,_ whilst still maintaining a professional posture, every bit the psychiatrist she was. Her blues eyes, as kind as they were, narrowed slightly. Only one at the table hadn't noticed, and that was only because he was baring a sight greater than them all.

She was at his right.

Bella was not raised in wealth, but she was raised with tradition. Summers with her grandmother were agonizing, but they did yield some lessons of worth - lessons that only recently came in handy. Lessons such as seating arrangements. She never held a dinner party, but she knew the rules. She knew that a host placed the female guest of honor at his right; the male guest of honor at the right of the hostess. Though, she supposed that without a hostess that to the left would work all the same. Regardless, looking at Alana with a knowing gaze, she felt her heartbeat slow. She understood now. She took something Alana wanted. Again.

Will. Abigail. Hannibal.

Bella sat still, hands folded, looking down at her plate, hiding behind her hair as she tried to silence the pride in it, the feeling of having so much. She wasn't a glutton. Most of her life, she felt hallow, starved with only loneliness to indulge with. Yet, here she was, the subject of jealousy. Alana saw her as stealing something of hers. Looking at Hannibal out of the corner of her eyes, finding him looking back at her as though they were trading unspoken secrets, she wondered if she was.

She never intended for her to fall this deeply into his hands. It was as though she were sitting on the edge of a bridge, peering down at the water rushing below. With every second she saw, the more she became hypnotized, entranced by the beauty, the freedom, of those waters. She would lean over, more and more, until the water was carrying her away, not even aware that she fell over until it was too late. It was an accident.

 _No,_ her mind whispered, flashing back to that night, their dinner.

He invited her in.

She accepted.

This was no accident.

No innocence.

She could plead "not guilty", she supposed. She may have allowed their relationship, their friendship, to be built upon, but he established the foundation.

This was his design.

"I don't think I've ever had tongue."

Alana's eyes rested on Hannibal, looking wider, slightly more demanding than usual. Her voice was soft, velvety, enticing. Bella could hardly blame Alana Bloom for wanting Hannibal's attentions. The man was immaculate in almost every visible way. Even allowing her own eyes to drink in his elegant and angular visage, she found her own heart beating quicker, yet, the fear of him was gone, replaced with trust.

 _Abigail._

Her sweet blue eyes shined brightly even in Bella's memories, a reminder of why she was placing her trust, her faith, in him.

 _Hannibal will save her._

The thought echoed until the tension brought on by seemingly endless worry lessoned.

She had to trust him.

"It was a particularly chatty lamb," Hannibal replied, lips curling into a smile.

Bella's nose wrinkled and a breathy laugh left Alana. Frederick, however, tilted his head, a sharp smile on his own lips.

"Romans would kill flamingos just to eat their tongues."

To this, Hannibal's smile grew.

"Don't give me ideas. Your tongue is very feisty and as this evening has already proven, it's nice to have an old friend for dinner."

Bella's eyes flashed to Hannibal, finding him looking back. There was something in his eyes, a message she could not decipher, but she felt her lips twitch into a poor grin.

The honor of a toast belonged to Hannibal, yet Dr. Chilton was the one raising a glass.

When she looked at him, she found him changed. His smile, still present, was tighter, thin wrinkles appeared on his finely sculpted face from the strain as Frederick raised his glass to the Chesapeake Ripper, Dr. Gideon.

Clearing his throat, seeing neither her or Alana raising their own glasses, he lowered his.

"Of course, there are some who do not believe him to be the pure sociopath that he is - and he is," he stressed, looking pointedly at both her and Alana. "It is only natural that those who do not understand understand the complicated science behind psychiatry to acknowledge the reality that is Abel Gideon." His eyes switched to Bella, a spotlight on the one that was not like the others. "You cannot blame yourself, Ms. Bennet. You do not have the same experiences we have."

She averted her eyes in the case that she couldn't stop them from rolling. She was hiding, and for that, he drank in the sight, this false shift in power.

She told herself that Jack was the one who let it slip, who, perhaps, described how she came to work for him. She knew that he couldn't know more about her than what Jack knew, but the tension in her spine refused to leave. So, she simply told herself that this is who he was, who he always felt compelled to be: an entertainer.

She imagined him as a child, picturing him as a boy who learned how to talk and never stopped, reaching the height of his life early and resigning to some cruelly mundane life where his only sense of joy came from standing above others. She knew the agonizing loudness of life. The difference was that she found her outlet in reflection, and he found his in reputation.

He mistook her silence for submission.

When words began leaving him again, they fell unto her deafened ears.

She fell back into her old self, the one who drowned out the world, staring out the dirty windows of a diner in the middle of nowhere.

Her eyes went out of focus. The voices around her blending together, muffling as she drifted away from everyone else and into herself until she was surrounded by nothing.

It was dark, this nothingness. . .

. . . until it wasn't.

She found herself back in Hannibal's dining room, this stage Hannibal created, sitting across from a pair of pretty blue eyes rather than brown. A sharp and vivid version Abigail instead of the fading memory of her brother.

And she was stunning.

Abigail sat before her, smiling innocently, dressed simply in a white t-shirt, pale pink cardigan. There was a dainty silver necklace hanging from her scarred neck, absent of the many scarves Alana bought her. She wasn't ashamed. Her eyes were no longer distant. She was completely aware, completely whole with no empty spaces within herself to slip into. She was beautiful, happy, and young. She was a child again.

Her smile grew as she tilted her head back, craning it a bit sideways as a figure entered. Bella's eyes drifted away from Abigail and watched as the figure came into the light.

 _Hannibal_. He was in a button up shirt, lacking a sharp edged jacket or even a vest. He lacked his well tailored armor, placing his trust in his company. As he took his seat, his pale blue shirt wrinkling a bit as he settled in at the head of the table, his rightful place, a charming smile on his face as well. He looked every bit as content as Abigail, who looked at him as though he were every bit the hero he promised to be.

And then _he_ came.

Will strolled into the dining room. Like Hannibal, he was in a button up shirt, though it was grey and far more wrinkled. He took his place, at her side, and he looked to her, and just like the rest of them he smiled. He leaned forward, placing a kiss on her cheek. She could almost feel his lips on her cheek, chapped from the dry wind outside, and she felt her own curling up into a smile, matching this little family of hers.

"Gross," she heard Abigail whine. When Bella's eyes reached Abigail, she found the young girl rolling her eyes. Hannibal and Will, their faint laughter melded together by the time it reached her ears. "Eat up. You're food is getting cold and Hannibal and I worked really hard on it," Abigail urged, lifting her fork to her mouth as if to show Bella how to eat.

Abigail's cheek was enough to bring breath of a laugh to her lips as she cut herself a bite. She was indulging herself with a fantasy of a family of more than two, a world for more than two, and was beautiful up until the moment it ended, fading away in a cloud of dust.

Her cheeks were dusted with a rosy color, realizing she had either been spoken to or spoken of.

"I'm sorry," she choked out, setting her silverware down, as if to repay her lack of attention before with extra. "I just have a lot on my mind," she said, louder than a whisper, but almost too quiet to be heard.

Tilting his head, feigning a look of concern, Frederick dared to ask, "How often do you find yourself this distracted, Ms. Bennet? Have you considered-"

"Thank you for your concern, Dr. Chilton, but I don't need it," she dismissed coolly, looking at her wine glass rather than him. She wouldn't allow him even a chance to look her in the eyes, gouging for a trace of any thoughts or feelings.

The silence was broken by Alana, playing her part as a peacekeeper.

"Hannibal was telling us how you helped him with dessert."

Her smile was gentle, polite. For a moment, Bella almost felt as though she wanted trust her.

She didn't.

"Yes."

Short answers again.

Perhaps alone, she would feel more at ease, less twitchy, less inclined to keep her eyes lowered, choosing every word and movement carefully in fear of the ramifications of a single misstep or misspoken word. She didn't need, nor did she want, either of them passing along their findings to Jack - or to anyone else. And if Frederick Chilton was one thing, it was a sellout. Empty and desperate. A part of her didn't blame him for snatching at anything he could get his hands on, but she could blame him for the broken pieces he left behind.

 _Abel Gideon._

 _Elizabeth Shell._

There were more names. She didn't know them, but she knew there were more just as she knew there would be more to come.

 _Cockroach_ , she thought, wrinkling her nose.

When invited to help Hannibal serve dessert, she accepted. She rose from her seat, moving across the dining room and into the kitchen so quietly as if to not disturb the air. She felt as though she was keeping a secret. _Another secret_ , she corrected internally, remembering his kindness. This was another. She knew Hannibal could serve dessert alone. He planned this evening alone. Yet, she came and he allowed her to join him, to become an extension of his own hands.

And it felt right.

When they were away from prying ears, Hannibal stopped before her, looking her in the eyes, brows furrowed with concern.

"Thank you."

The words left her lips easier than she anticipated.

She felt her armor fall from her body and mind, standing bare, vulnerable, for Hannibal to bare witness to.

And he savored the taste of her trust, which flowed from her words, dripping from every action she took. With one promise, he strengthened bond between them, watching with excitement as it began to take shape. He could see her becoming more comfortable with him, since he fell into the category of "us", when it came being "us" or "them". They had a secret between them, a plan, a plot, something that would rest in a garden of their own making for him to tend to, to make it grow. He wanted it to be watered by those painful secrets that would bleed out from her when she was ready. And he would tend to her and what rested between them post-confession. He could taste it, as though those secrets, so close and intimate, were beginning to trickle down subconsciously.

He could see it.

She was raw, quiet, and withdrawn with Frederick and Alana, but only after she decided that they were not worth her time. Before she fell into herself, he saw her and all her potential. Beautiful, confident, smarter than she was credited with. And even before then, speaking to him about Abigail, he found a deeper sensitivity. Her being was refreshing to him. Her and Will.

Thinking of the handsome and haunted "special" agent, Hannibal recalled the latest missed appointment. Though he had seen the man, hearing that his absence was caused with "chasing the Ripper" - another reminder of his stolen identity, another reminder as to why he so longingly wished it was Frederick's tongue or, better yet, Ms. Lounds' to which they feasted on - he realized that his time with the agent would be sparse as of late. He was lingering on Will's absence, chasing that dull aching in his chest, foreign to anything he felt before, so enticing due to not being able to recall the exact time he felt it, he forgot of who else Will would be stolen from until she found her way into his home. It was fate, he wanted to believe.

As much as he longed for Will's presence, he would make use of the time spent focusing on his little doe, who now stared at him, wide eyed, lips parted, distracted yet present.

He felt a mild sense of pride, hiding it behind concern.

 _She wants to speak, but is afraid of who might hear._

"Thank _you_ ," he counters. His voice smooth, silky.

She struggled, uncomfortable with her own words being returned to her, but she eventually accepted, not wanting to meet his eyes, not wanting to disappoint him.

"I mean, thank you for trying to make me feel. . ." The words do not reach her lips, but he knows.

She was observant, noting that it was from his plate he shared food with, to his side she was placed at. He made her feel welcome, even with the unwelcoming company, and that was heartbreaking in his compassion. She felt an echo of the lurid feelings from her and Will's first night drinking, that sense of wonder and disbelief at a home, but it was just that: an echo. Despite the beauty of his home, this world of his own making, it was lonely. The unconditional promise of safety, security, and love given by dogs wasn't present.

And to some degree, she understood that Hannibal came with conditions.

Did she mind?

He could see the gears in her mind turning, the fine muscles of her brow pulling them down as she began to slip away again.

He decided to be bold.

Stepping forward, he placed a hand on the side of her face, and her eyes widened as she was pulled back to the present, commanded by his touch. He could see her trying to relax, but her cheeks were reddening, her pulse quickening.

 _Nothing wrong with applied pressure and heat._

With that, he would make diamonds out of both Bella and Will.

"You can leave, if you wish," he offered, his eyes flickering to the doorway that lead down the hall to the front door.

He would spare her the rest of the night, letting her steal away, lying for her, knowing that another secret, this one small, yet still rich, between them. He would watch as she ran away, knowing that she would eventually come back to him.

But she didn't run.

"And miss dessert?"

She meant it as a joke. Neither of them laughed, but Hannibal's lips did curl into a smile, pleased with her choice.

 _ **Will Graham's House, Wolftrap, Virginia**_

When they arrived at her home, she tried to hide the disappointment in her eyes when she saw Will wasn't home. This was the second - or was it the third? - consecutive week where she was the first one home. She tried not to blame Will. She couldn't fault him for trying to make the world a little less dark and dangerous. She couldn't fault him for trying to save people from the cruelty that these killers made of their last moments on earth. She could only fault him for doing this, knowing what a toll it took on him and their home.

Every night, she would wait, pouring over her own case, until he found his way back to her. And, when he did, he would find her, waiting with fading patience, longingly. She wouldn't move from her place, often on the couch, wanting him to come to her as compensation for making her wait in the first place. She was never still for long. She would always move, sometimes climbing onto the edge of the couch to meet him, no matter how sweaty and tired he was from a long day. And they would linger in that moment, in a blur of hungry, yet tired kisses until he would leave to shower. Once done, they would go to bed, tangled together trying to find some peace of mind.

Every night, she felt more and more distant from Will. She could see the weight of his work baring down on him, causing him to crack, his breaking showing in the form of nightmares. Every night, she would get less and less sleep, waking him from his nightmares, watching over him, not wanting to leave him to face his fears alone. The nightmares only grew worse, as did her sleeping schedule. This was why seeing him gone this late filled her with such dread.

When she turned to Hannibal, meaning to thank him for the ride home, she found herself startled. He was looking not at the empty space meant for Will's station wagon with concern, but her. She heard herself speak, thanking him for the ride, for dinner, for _"everything._ "

When she tried opening the door, she hesitated, feeling a burning in her lungs. She realized then that she was holding her breathe. Not knowing why, she tried to let it go, letting her hot breathe pass through her lips in a long and even sigh. She could see it, with the cold weather, it was as though she were breathing out smoke. She knew Hannibal could see. She didn't want to explain why she was holding her breathe, whether it was out of tire or anticipation - she couldn't tell which it was - so she left. She crossed the yard quickly, not wanting to look back, but when her fingers curled over the cold door knob, she felt her body twist and her eyes begin to search as though to find his eyes in the distance, in the dark. She didn't see him. She couldn't.

Yet, she knew he was smiling even as he drove off.

When she entered the house, she found herself welcomed with all the love and affection she missed during the day from the dogs, returning that love and affection in kind as she waited in hopes of Will being not too long after. When he didn't, she, heart heavy with disappointment, went to the kitchen, pouring herself a glass, not even bothering to check the bottle. She downed it and followed through with the same ritual she kept for the past three weeks. She showered, prepared for bed, and read over files silently until she heard Will pull up to the house. This time, it was after midnight.

When he walked in, she felt her frustrations wane, seeing him exhausted, so much so that when his coat fell after he tried hanging it, he simply abandoned it. She opened her mouth, wanting to ask about the case, any news of progress, any news of its end, but his movements, despite his weariness, were quick. He crossed the living room quickly, and before she could process any of his movements, his expressions, to prepare, a hand was in her hair and an arm around her waist, pulling her towards him until their lips collided.

Their lips moved together, desperate and hungry.

Her lungs burned, but she didn't mind, not until he pulled away. Needily, she tugged on the back of his neck, trying to pull him back to her, wanting nothing more than to lose herself in him, but he resisted, resting his head against her. His breath on her lips was agonizing. He was so close, yet so far. . .

"I missed you."

"I'm right here," she whispered, brows furrowed, lips pulled down, heart aching in how badly she wanted to scream that for the past weeks.

His eyes opened as he pulled away, watching as she, exasperated, sighed and let her grip on him slacken, arms falling to her sides in defeat. He didn't let go. His hands slipping to her hips, holding on loosely, but refusing to let her go. He refused to let her slip from his fingers.

His lips parted, wanting to apologize. For what, he wasn't sure.

Was it for allowing their home to slip away without consultation? Was it for the ties he feared were being severed in his absence? Was it for abandoning their rituals, those unspoken, yet unbroken until late promises they kept for one another? Was it for chancing their relationship when he knew so much of it depended on the stability they maintained for each other?

He couldn't dwell on it now. He wouldn't spend time wallowing in guilt when she was _right here_.

Still, he wanted to apologize, especially when he felt her gentle lips on his cheeks, his eyes, his forehead.

She was covering him in love and affection, and what did he have to give her in return besides late nights and tiring mornings?

"I was held up," he tried explaining. "Beverly and-"

"Shh. . ."

He blinked, feeling her hands pressing against his chest.

"No more work," she pleaded, brown eyes glistening with crystalline hope.

How could he deny her?

Nodding numbly, he let her go when she pulled away, watching her as she moved towards the left-side shelves by the fireplace. He saw her rise to the tip of her toes, reaching for a box, one of the few things she brought with her during the move. From that box she procured a cd, holding it up with a smile. His eyes narrowed curiously as she moved towards his stereo, slipping it in. It took some time, the cd likely scratched, but, eventually, music streamed out.

It was an old one, sounding of country with traces of jazz and blues from what he could tell.

"No more work," she insisted, sauntering towards him, a hand outstretched, both an offer and a plea.

His own slipped over hers, a smile on his face as she with that same surprising strength pulled him towards her, against her. Her arms gingerly wrapped around his neck, laughing lightly as they began to sway.

 _"I go out walkin' after midnight, out in the moonlight, just like we used to do. . ."_

She was singing along, softly and fairly off-key, but he didn't mind. He only laughed, feeling the weight of the world lift from his shoulders, if only for a night.

Swaying there, to some song he didn't know, but would be humming months later, despite feeling as though he were slowly deteriorating, he felt whole again. He knew he likely wasn't handsome. His face had been hollow, more disheveled after hours in the lab, examining all their recent evidence, previous evidence, which only came after enduring Jack, more panicked than he ever seen or heard, confiding in him, sharing this haunting he experienced and continues to experience, the one that threatened his home, his wife, and having to consider what may happen to his own home, _his_ Bella. He came home, terrified of what could have happened in his absence, what might happen in his absence, seeking out his Bella, and trying so hard to take her into himself, and shield her from everything and everyone, especially this Chesapeake Ripper.

Yet, it was the way she looked at him with her own tired eyes, as though she were seeing a sunrise for the first time.

When the cd finished playing its few outdated songs, she was the one who made him shower, the one who kindly made their unmade bed fit for sleeping. And that night, they both felt a moment of relief to be warm, to be free of worries of if they would make it through this roughness. Though the nightmares came, mercilessly, Bella, as always, was there, and, if only for one night, he didn't feel guilty for taking comfort in the arms she held him with. These empty hours of doing nothing except resting from the world outside were what he'd come to miss.

Mutual comfort.

It was a good night. . .

. . . But it didn't last.

 _ **Opéra de L'ouest,**_ ** _McCluster Hall, Baltimore, Maryland_**

Among the finely dressed cultural elite, she was a refreshing sight.

He could find her in the sea of dark colors - black, navy, maroon, the reserved and "refined" colors that the majority of women prefer here - in a shorter dress, looking like the first breath of spring in a peach colored dress, the warm color giving her a delightful glow. Though she was still in a modest dress, Hannibal drank in her form, having never seen her show as much of her skin. Her shoulders bare, exposed all the way to the end of her shoulder blades; legs looking toned from short heels - he smiled, knowing she would only go so with the risk of shoes if she needed to run - and longer than he first imagined under a full skirt, fabric falling naturally and asymmetric.

Though not as surrounded as he, there was a flock of socialites at her feet, each trying to catch a glimpse of what was behind this woman. She wore a polite smile, head tilted slightly downward, eyes slipping to her glass of champagne. She was the epitome of classic femininity, warm, inviting, humble. He caught her smiling, laughing at what he held no doubts the joke of someone wanting so badly to hear that very laugh. Her head tilting back some, pearly teeth flashing as she smiled carelessly.

She gave a false illusion of what she just might become under his care.

She turned her head, her eyes finding him naturally - she did not appear to be searching for him. She found him as though her eyes were drawn to him, as though there was some force pulling them to him. He doubted this, but the thought pleased him, even more so when she made her way to his side, smiling at his own audience, looking as cordial and forthcoming as Will Graham was avoidant. It was a surprising change from the quiet, internalized woman he dined with two weeks prior.

The first to notice her was Mrs. Komeda, a brittle woman in her late fifties with dark hair, sharp cheekbones, and lips as red as the dress she wore. She was elegant, poised, standing alone despite her husband's longing looks. She, among all the patrons, was the most well versed in the arts, appreciating every detail of every craft, one of the many reasons he enjoyed cooking for her, something she so eagerly asked him to remind her of. _"It's been too long since you've properly cooked for us_ ," she had said. Her praise was interrupted when she noticed Bella approaching, eyes widening with interest when she took her place at his right, blinking innocently.

If he didn't know any better, he would fall under her charms. Appreciate them, he did, but he wasn't blinded by them.

"Impressed" was a more fitting word.

"Hello, dear," Mrs. Komeda greeted Bella with, her voice gentle, yet excited, as though talking to a child. Though, he supposed she was young enough to be to her.

Bella gave a smooth and respectful nod.

"Hello."

Her voice was softer, lighter even, earning a pleased grin from Mrs. Komeda.

"I don't recall ever seeing you here before," Mrs. Komeda said, trailing off as though she were looking back through hazy memories. Hannibal knew she was sharp, but the sentiment played beautifully with the scene.

"That would be because this is my first time to the Opera - thanks to Hannibal, that is," Bella added, giving him a polite smile, eyes flashing with something he let slip away before he could fully decipher it. Mrs. Komeda's eyes flashed with something too, noticing the familiarity of his name on her lips. Not Dr. Lecter. _Hannibal_. Looking at Bella again, he felt admiration rise within, knowing exactly why his name left her so easily. She knew his name held weight among these people.

"How do you know Hannibal?" Mrs. Komeda's eyes lingered on Bella's face, analyzing the maturity of it before looking to him, eyes narrowing, yet a grin still playing on her lips.

He did not answer.

He wanted to hear hers.

How would she describe their relationship?

"He's a dear friend of mine," Bella answered simply, but happily, even going as far as to look at him, fondness filling her eyes.

"Then you know what a wonderful cook he is then," she said pointedly, giving a friendly glare at him as though he was caught in a lie. Never. "I was just trying to convince him that a dinner party would do well to liven our spirits."

If it was a dinner party she wanted, he would be happy to follow through. He only needed time. . .

"Liven your spirits," Bella echoed, smile fading from her lips, head tilting with false confusion.

Mrs. Komeda gave a heavy sigh, looking to the other patrons, wondering just who was willing to risk scaring Bella away.

"There has been a few tragedies lately in our well cultured circles," her husband answered, uncomfortably clearing his throat. Bella didn't press him with words, only allowing her lips to part, just a hint at the question that rested on the edge of them. "The ballet in this region has been, for the lack of a better word, the obsession of a serial killer."

Swallowing, looking uncomfortable, looking as though she hadn't known every possible detail available, she manages to hesitate without saying a word.

And Mrs. Komeda was quick to salve her conscience.

"Of course, the Baltimore Ballet is taking precautions. Their performance of Swan Lake is coming up," she added. Her shoulders slackened, turning her head, exposing a long and pale neck, wrinkled with her aging, eyes rolling as she sighed. "They were planning on doing a new version of _Sylvia_. Can you believe it?" she asked, unimpressed. She went on describing the reasons why the simple suggestion would have been a bad idea, why Swan Lake was better, how many connections she had, making it out to be as though it was by her will alone that they changed productions. Though, Bella did consider the fact that she didn't know this woman, and she very may well have.

This wasn't her natural environment.

Not in the slightest.

Bella excused herself, unable to even pretend to listen. She moved fast after uttering an apology, trying to drowning out the merciless voices. All that was on her mind was of her killer. She tried to remember the name Freddie Lounds coined.

She thought about what Will said.

What Jack said.

"He'll likely stop at Baltimore. Classical ballet, not too high on security, but still big enough to make a grand statement."

When she came to this event, she had it in her mind that everything would work out, as though by the time the night ended, she would have already figured out the killer, that she would pick up on something. It had been hours, and she felt just as lost as she did when she first took on the case.

She was doing the detective's equivalent of throwing darts at a board with a blindfold on in hopes of accidentally hitting the mark.

At least outside, in the cool and quiet hallways, she felt safe a little safe again.

She put on a good face. Lying was easier than she remembered - though, she should have expected it to be. This wasn't lying to someone who knew her, or, rather, thought to know her. This was lying to strangers, who knew nothing of her besides what little she presented to them. And her presentation? It was an easy sell.

She wasn't blind. She knew that she had a pretty face despite the scars. She knew she was fit, a nice body - again, despite the scars. She knew that warm colors looked good on her, that it attracted attention. She showed enough of herself for others to want to know her. The scars helped especially. She was so used to hiding them, the ones on her back and arms specifically, that she forgot their uses. Besides being a risk for being recognized, for those who didn't know where they came from, who they came from, they were whatever she wanted them to be. Tonight, they were a tool. A polite, clever, and sociable woman with scars wrapped in a pretty package was inviting.

She could see it in the way some of the men looked at her.

Men loved to play the hero, so she let them have their fun. She listened patiently, understandingly, giving a charmed smile here and there. When shyly turning her eyes away, she would catch sight of their wives, lovely, gorgeous and matured. Some bared twitching smiles at their husband's interests in a woman younger than them. She wasn't even necessarily prettier. Just something shiny and new to distract the sad excuses that were their husbands, who were divorced from them long before papers would be drafted. Most, however, looked to her with a keen level of curiosity as well, some enjoying a new person to share with - and the sharing was important, for both men and women. Men, for the most part, shared their experience. That's how a majority made friendships, at least, that's what she read somewhere at some time before. She would follow through their journeys and memories, and they would look at her as though their interest validated their experience or further affirmed their own notions of themselves.

There was many like Frederick Chilton in this crowd, and she took them with grace, and for what?

She felt no closer than she was before. According to Will, they were in the right region for the killer, but that very region covered more than one state. So, the chances of her killer being in this single community now felt smaller and smaller. She wondered whether she overestimated this network. . .

Her ears caught onto the sounds of heavy, shuffling feet. She kept her eyes down until the person drew closer. Their pace wasn't quick enough to cause extreme alarm.

When her head lifted towards the sound, she caught sight of a man. He was heavy, but well groomed. As he drew closer, she began to pick apart his facial features. His bright eyes were the first thing she noticed. Despite the beard and forehead wrinkles that aged his rounded face, there was a youthful spark to his brown eyes, a childlike crookedness to his natural shaped lips.

"Excuse me?"

There was a slight quaver to his voice, and when he stopped before her, at a respectable distance, his head slightly leaned forward, an unofficial bow.

Bella lifted her shoulders, falling back into her role, but a genuine compassion when her lips lifted, wanting to ease the stress of a stranger. This man was different than the others. He carried a humbleness to him.

He let a breath of relief pass through his lips, as though he didn't expect to even get as far as a response from her.

"I couldn't help but notice you with Dr. Lecter."

His calling Hannibal "Dr. Lecter" was another sign, naming him an outsider. She would have had to be deaf not to notice the familiarity to which the others spoke to him with. _Hannibal_ was well acquainted with this crowd. How could he not be? These people seemed to be of the closest caliber to his own skills and passions.

She might have felt ashamed, out of her depth compared to these people if she didn't see the shallowness of most of them. They, who so eagerly bred their pleasures, would drown in them. They weren't interested in art, wealth, and power as much as they were driven by the idea that having an abundance of any of those would sooth that tell-tale emptiness in their hearts. It was all worthless, their pursuits, their motivations. She could see why Hannibal, though entertained by them, would want more.

She only wondered if she and Will were the "more" he was looking for.

 _If Will wasn't busied with the Ripper, would he be here by Hannibal's side instead?_

 _Would that bother me?_

 _Should that bother me?_

Bella couldn't find it within her to have any jealousy. She didn't know what kind of jealousy to even have. The idea that it would be Will instead of her, or that it would be Hannibal instead of her.

A dusty rose color came onto her cheeks as she felt a sort of excitement at the thought of those two, side by side, immaculate in appearance, just as Hannibal would demand. Together.

 _Everyone has their fantasies,_ a softly spoken voice in the back of her mind all but whispered.

Her heart nearly skipped a beat, a dizziness invading her mind and body.

She was smart enough to pull herself back to the present, back to the stranger, who waited, looking somewhat concerned over her silence.

"I. . ." She lost hold of her acting ability, her false self slipping away in her diverted attention. Her shoulders even pulled forward to a natural hunch. She pulled back her shoulders, back straightening, eyes blinking as she tried to recover.

"Oh, I didn't mean to fluster you!" the man stammered, looking more worried, more rattled than her. "I just - I didn't know he had a girlfriend, especially someone so _young_."

"I'm not his girlfriend," Bella quickly corrected, cheeks red. Her heart had been racing, but her mind came to a complete halt at the man's claim. Swallowing, trying to delve deeper into the sturdiness that was in her voice, in that moment, she licked her lips. The cheap lipstick she wore losing some of its color.

 _Young? How young do I look?_

Her mind flashed back to Will and her's first date - could that first night at his house sharing drinks and trying to evade each other while testing one another count as a date? It wasn't exactly the standard first date. Then again, everything about their relationship seemed a bit vague, a bit hazy. However, things didn't need to be defined between them.

She shook the thoughts, memories, and slight-offense away.

"Oh." What redness faded from her cheeks bloomed on his. For a good minute, he fluctuated between opening his mouth and shutting it, looking like a puppet as he tried to find his footing. In that time, Bella wondered if it was natural for the socially inept to attract one another. Did he recognize that she too was an outsider? Was her costume not as well tailored as she thought it to be? _Maybe I am more out of my depth than I thought._

"I was just. . . After you left, I approached him. I thought it would be okay since he's my doctor-" Bella half pitied his apparent desperation and longing and half worried if that desperation and longing would prove to be a threat. "-and I think I might have embarrassed him." She wouldn't be surprised if he did. As good natured as his intentions seemed, she caught onto the feeling that he was overwhelming. _He doesn't know how to love moderately_. "I just - I thought maybe I could introduce myself to you and apologize."

The regret glistened in his eyes. A child ashamed of humiliating a maker that wasn't his.

Yes. She pitied him.

"I just thought since you came with him, that you and him were. . ." He trailed off, not wanting to say the word "together" as though it were scandalous. Though, in a way, she suppose it would be.

Glancing back towards the doors leading back inside, she imagined Hannibal there, looking pristine as always.

 _It would be a scandal. Someone as messy as me, even under the finest of masks could only pale in comparison to him._

"Do you think you could tell him I'm sorry?" the man asked, eyes wide, hopeful.

She knew she shouldn't. This was something between Hannibal and his patients. She was his patient. _On paper_ , that same soft spoken voice corrected.

"I don't know your name."

She knew that this was was a bad decision, but the sheer relief in his eyes, as though she were giving him absolution broke her heart too much to not follow through. He so badly wanted to be liked.

"Franklyn!" He chirped eagerly. "Franklyn Froideveaux," he clarified.

She watched as he stumbled over himself, uncertain of how to show his thanks, eventually giving her an actual bow that followed a handshake where he took her smaller hand into his, giving it a trembling shake. She wanted to close her eyes and shake her head at this man. He so badly wanted to be touched by Hannibal's greatness. And, a part of her understood.

She lingered there for a moment, just digesting the small interaction, the messiness of it, before returning to her own stresses, her own shortcomings. When she had enough of swallowing her own suffering, she returned to the social masses, her tired lips pulling into a smile as she weaved through the crowd, stealthily plucking a champagne flute off of a server's tray, downing it quickly before setting it on another's tray and picking up a second glass. She held no doubt that someone or two saw her, but she couldn't find it in herself to care. The only one she could tell that saw her had an amused smile playing on his lips, one that only grew when she returned to his side.

" _Bella_."

Her name left his lips, sounding of silk and silver. She could see how he attracted everyone's attention, and she wondered how she ever feared him before.

 _He is so easy to like._

"Mrs. Komeda promised a tour of the theater in exchange for a dinner party," he mentioned, smiling happily. Bella's eyes narrowed slightly, knowing he would not bend to the will of someone else. No. He was getting exactly as he wanted. The small dinners with Jack, Alana, Frederick, herself and Will weren't enough. They were private performances, but he was itching for an audience. She could see it in how he grinned at the Komedas and their companions.

She should have been worried at this show of power, of influence, but she only felt proud. And it was then she understood why she no longer feared him, but rather respected him. They were on the same side.

"Thank you," she said, turning her gaze to Mrs. Komeda. The woman only gave her an elegant shrug, rolling her wrists as she brought them to shoulder length with a false grandiosity.

"What can I say? His dinners are as delicious as they are beautiful, and I'd be fool not to try and make a deal to get one out of him."

Bella glanced at Hannibal, seeing him poised, relaxed, not looking the slightest bit pressured.

 _He would let them think that. He would let them buy into the illusion that they were getting something in return when all that is really happening is that he's being treated twice - No. Wait. . ._

There was a pride in her heart when she realized that she was wrong. That it wasn't him being treated twice. He would have had the dinner party regardless. The invitation to the theater was for her investigation. For her.

"Bella has quite the eye for beauty and excellence. I have no doubts that she will appreciate the ballet's beauty to the fullest extent."

 _The ballet is not all I appreciate, Hannibal._

 _ **France-Merrick Performing Arts Center, Baltimore, Maryland**_

She thought it strange, how different they were from what they started as. She thought it strange, how different _she_ was from who she started as. No more was she the waitress, trapped within the bleak routine that was her life at the diner. And though there were times when she longed to go back to its simplicity, she knew it was a lie. As complicated as things were becoming, there was a thrill to it. She knew it by the way she woke up in the morning, no longer rising from a stiff bed as though she were a shell of herself. No, she rose with a drive within her, more than one purpose powering her person.

Will. Abigail. Hannibal.

At first, she wondered if she was just deluding herself. She began to fear that one day she and Will would find themselves drifting apart as she and Alejandra had, that she would, under the right amount of pressure, leave behind someone who was so good for her. That she would leave this life behind after it began to peel away and reveal something crude and ugly.

Now, she understood that she wouldn't run. She wouldn't run because, somehow, she found her heart changed. She found a reason to stay, and she knew this because things were getting crude and ugly. Will's nightmares were worsening. The night before hers and Hannibal's trip to the theater, she woke him from a nightmare, and he still lost within his own terrors, didn't recognize her. By the time she hit the floor, he broke free from the dark part of his mind's hold, and he shattered before her eyes, falling to his knees, scrambling towards her, and with trembling hands tried to draw her close, apologies flooding from his lips.

The old Bella would have left.

After he cried himself to sleep, she would have ran away, not giving him another chance to so much as look at her again. She wouldn't have given a second chance to be bruised or scarred. The old her would have done all the tricks she passed onto Abigail, and she would have disappeared. Again.

But she didn't go.

She didn't feel scared for her own safety. She felt scared - terrified - for him. For Will. She held him tight, letting forgiveness pour out of her, trying to fill whatever Will lost in one mistake. Every time he shamefully looked away from her, she matched him by placing her hands on either side of his face, forcing him to look, to see that she didn't blame him, that she still bared the same love, if not more, that she did before.

When he left her, going off some organ harvester or, possibly, the Chesapeake Ripper, she clung to him, not letting go of his hand when Jack called to him from a black FBI SUV that was as intimidating and forbidding as a hearse. She did something bold, something impulsive. When he looked at her in confusion when she refused to let go, she yanked him back to her, and when his body collided with hers, so did their lips. She pressed hers against his with a near bruising pain, begging him, desperately, to come back to her.

When she let him go, looking to him as brokenly as he did her, he couldn't help for another apology to rain from his lips.

She was left devastated, and it was that devastation that made her change visible.

It made it real.

Hannibal would have to be blind not to see it, that sometime between the short time in which he saw her last to the present, something happened. Something close, something _intimate_ to her heart which lead him to think of two people who could have caused this cementation of change. Abigail or Will. Based on the swell of her lips and the dark grey mourning colors of her clothes, he knew it to be Will. And while a part of him bared pity for the price of Will's becoming, he told himself that this would all be worth it in the end. He saw through them, and he found a reflection of himself, and he knew that their tragedies, their pain, would be the foundation for something exquisite, something perfect.

When he found her, sitting on the front porch of her house, Will's house, their home, she looked more like herself. Hair messy, face void of any color save her cheeks, pink and raw from being scratched by dry and heavy wind, skin covered in grey. Grey was the long sleeved wool dress which bared wrinkles when she stood to greet him, grey tights that were, at least, darker than her dress, forcing him to acknowledge that she was at least trying, and grey were her boots - though, he did suspect they were once black, just weathered away with age. The weather, cold, dry, and cloudy did nothing for her beauty, and a part of him wished to mourn the loss of who she was the night of the opera.

Yet, he knew that he could draw out the real version of that woman. He just needed time to know her intuitively, intimately, and he would turn her inside out, pulling her true nature into the light as he would Will.

He tried drawing out something, anything, out of her during the ride to the theater, but she just continued to look sullen in silence.

She kept to her silence, even when they were greeted by the director, a man closer to his age than hers, but with the same unkept look that she bared. Loose clothes, tousled hair, weariness in his eyes. A smile spread across his features when he spotted Hannibal, looking at the man as though they were the dearest of friends. When his eyes fell onto Bella, Hannibal spotted the swell of the man's chest, the way he stood taller, trying to take up more space, to look bigger than he was.

" _Bella_ ," the director purred, looking at Bella with the same honey-like sweetness that dripped from his voice. She only gave a polite smile, distracted still.

Throughout their whole tour, she was drifting away. He could see her struggle to focus, but her mind kept wandering. In the end, she was too far gone, leaving him to give thanks, to promise that they were eagerly awaiting opening night.

"Do come back again, 'annibal," the director welcomed before leaving them outside, returning to his place - inside the theater, ordering his dancers, commanding them to perfection with a magnetic intensity that could only belong to a man who gave his life to the arts. No friends, no family, just his art. Bella might have noticed his obsessive nature if she hadn't retreated too far into herself to notice.

Even now, looking at her, Hannibal wondered what exactly occurred in her home, briefly worrying that he, for the first time in two years, made a mistake.

"Bella," he called, saying her name as gently as he imagined Will to. He wanted to have the same hold Will had on her.

He had to call her again before she gave the slightest response, her shoulders rising as she took a long and shaky breath.

"I don't. . ." she stopped for a moment, her head turning, not far enough to see him clearly, just to see the shape of him, the idea of him and opening up. He could see the side of her face, the way her lips parted. "I don't know why I thought any of this would be easy," she said bitterly, finally turning around to face him, brown eyes filled with regret, guilt, shame.

"This?" he repeated, his eyes searching through hers, sifting through her emotions, trying to find the cause. She couldn't form an answer, but her lips moved, just for a moment, forming one sound. Will's name almost left her, but she couldn't say it. "Did something happen?" She wouldn't betray Will. Looking at her now, he could see that. She wanted to tell him, so badly, what was wrong, what happened to warrant her closing up again, but she wouldn't. Her loyalties were impenetrable. It was admirable, but inconvenient. "I thought we were beyond keeping secrets from each other."

There was pain in her eyes, a frantic burst of guilt at the slight against him, against their friendship, but she still didn't say a word.

He appreciated this side of her. The side that would swallow her pain if it meant protecting someone she loved. He wondered how much she would suffer for him now, how much she would suffer for him when he was done with her.

He wondered, briefly, if he ever would be done with her.

"I think he's getting worse."

Her voice was brittle, but her eyes remained on his, refusing to break under the pressure he applied, trying to squeeze the truth from her. He could see the sickness swelling within her, the guilt rising up her throat. She wanted to trust him. He could see how she so badly wanted to confess to him, but she couldn't. Not without shame soon setting in her bones. It was a bitter temptation, to want to see her authentic self, but only for it to be followed by regret.

He didn't want her to regret him.

He wanted to see her exposed, for her to offer that tender heart, so raw and pure, of hers to him without resistance, without shame.

She wasn't ready.

"Will you tell. . ." Jack, Alana, _anyone_. He could see her fears, how petrified she was at the possible cost of her honesty.

"No."

It wouldn't do well for Will's becoming if he was treated for what Hannibal was exploiting.

"Why?" Her voice was tight. She was trying to regain her composure, to look stronger than she was, less confused than she was. "Shouldn't you- you're his doctor," she argued, her eyes flickering to the ground, to him, trying to sort through the dissonance. "You're-I. . ."

He moved closer, taking note of how she didn't shy away, how her eyes, however much distrust and doubt was forming, softened when he reached out a hand, touching the side of her face. His touch was light at first, but gently pressed into her cheek - or was she leaning into him? - quelling her quickening thoughts. He forced her to look at him, drawing a thumb over the scar above her cheekbone.

"I am his friend, just as I am yours," he promised, leaning his head forward ever the slightly, allowing her a better look into his eyes, as though to show her his honesty, his genuinely, the kind he wanted to see from her. "Trust that the choices I make, however unethical they are, hold my best intentions." His and no one else's. "Can you trust me?" _Trust me._

When she turned her head away, he nearly felt a hot and angry breath threaten to leave him, but then she looked back. Neither of them breathed, both waiting to see what the other would do, what the other might say. One, out of curiosity, the other out of uncertainty.

"Yes," she answered.

He didn't move for a moment, just watching her as her answer settled, the hot breath her answer left her lips with catching in the freezing air, slowly dispersing.

How many times would she accept his invitations?

How many times would she choose to eat the same seeds he offered her?

How many times would his lips curl upwards in pleasure at her going beyond her fears for him?

When he stepped away, he saw her shoulders move as her legs shifted, weight changing sides. Her expressions indecipherable, not because she was hiding them, but rather that so many were stirring within her. He would take his time tasting each one of them as he drawed her out.

"Come. I find that a warm meal can heal some of a wounded heart."

He offered her a hand, but she shook her head, looking towards the direction where they parked.

"You go ahead. May I have a few minutes alone?" she asked, trying to sound polite, but more strong. She, at least, had her politeness. She shook too much from the cold to look conventionally strong. "I just need a few to collect myself," she added, this time imitating his earlier actions, tilting her head forward, silently showing that genuine honesty he craved.

"Of course."

Prior to leaving her, he removed his coat, not even looking at her to ask for permission when he walked around her. Only when he was out of sight, he looked up. As much as she trusted him, he could still see the rise of her shoulders. She was responsive, even in her silence. One simply had to pay close attention.

Though he placed a warm coat over her shoulders, she looked no less cold, not relaxing even as she was wrapped in a symbol of his protection, as if she still could not quite understand him.

 _One day_ , he promised. _When we both cast aside our suits, exposing our true natures._

In his absence, Bella cast her eyes down, not moving, not knowing how to.

She would have been alone, trying to do as she promised, sorting her own thoughts, her own emotions, but she heard footsteps followed by the sound of something - _someone_ \- hitting the ground.

She moved quickly.

She was turned around in a second, on guard for whoever might be responsible, her weight resting on the balls of her feet, readying to run, but her adrenaline began to plummet with each blink as she batted her lashes, trying to clear the scene before her.

A woman in all black, on the ground, eyes shut tight, clutching the arm she likely broke her fall with.

"Jesus," Bella muttered under her breath, quickly moving to help the woman. "Are you okay?"

As she came closer, the details of the woman became more clear.

Dressed in black, she was still something vivid. She was thin, a long and slender body showcased by tightly fitted clothes. Bella would have had to be blind not to notice her fitness. When her eyes flickered upwards - only after a few short seconds - she took note of the woman's dark hair, an inky black, and dark eyes, almost too wide and awake, too ravenous, but all the more captivating.

Her previous self might have felt a stronger rush of excitement, the kind that came with an encounter with a woman with dark hair and dark eyes.

 _I have a type when it comes to_ women, she thought inwardly, trying to excuse the loss of thought she felt when the woman gave a weary smile.

"I'm fine," she answered. She raised the arm she once cradled close to her chest. "Bumps and bruises never did hurt too bad," she promised with a friendly smile, trying to rid of the worrisome crease forming on Bella's brow. "Gotta watch out for the ice, though."

Bella's eyes flickered to where the woman came from, the entrance was just solid cement, just barely containing traces of ice and snow that came with the morning.

She raised a questioning brow at the woman, who simply rolled her eyes playfully.

"I just have rotten luck," the woman sighed dramatically, flashing a smile afterwards to show she wasn't too hurt or humiliated. "You just going to stand there or are you going to help a girl out?" she asked, cocking one of her own brows upwards challengingly.

Bella huffed, but felt the heaviness in her chest lift, as she reached a hand out, rolling her eyes casually, mimicking the familiarity the stranger gave her, feeling a lightness return to her.

The feeling didn't last.

In the short time she allowed herself to roll her eyes, she lost sight of the woman. She didn't know what happened until she slammed against the harsh concrete.

The bright and hot pain in her skull masked the burning in her arm.

She couldn't see straight, but she could make out the blurry outline of the woman, crouched above her, something in her hand.

Bella, one hand shakily pressing against her head, trying in vain to sooth the pain, the other pushing her upright, body twisted, trying not to fall back, head first, onto the ground. It takes her a moment - or more, she couldn't tell time - before she makes out what the woman is holding.

That is when Bella notices the burning and reaches for her shoulder.

The ache is dull.

Everything is dull.

But its there.

It's there, and as everything begins fading, Bella looked back at the woman who, with stronger arms than hers, begins to pull her languid body up.

Her eyes, against her will, began to fall close, and the last thing she heard was her own slurred words.

 _"Did you just. . ."_

* * *

 **Yeah, so Bella was distracted this go around and it has consequences.**

 _ **I'm not sure if this chapter comes a cross a bit back and forth, but I really wanted to include a bit of softness about her home life (you know, before going back to how Will's health is going down the drain because of someone). Don't worry, this isn't the end of Bella and Will, just a reminder that Will is coming undone.**_

 ** _You'll see more of him next chapter. I plan on having more for his point of view as well as Hannibal's. So you're going to see just how well Will handles what he's done - even though it wasn't his fault - and what he has to do. Hannibal's will not be as paranoid. I feel like it isn't in his nature to be as much of a worrywart as Will is, but he will definitely want to see how things play out._**

 ** _ALSO, next chapter you will officially be meeting what I'm thinking of calling the Dollmaker._**

 ** _I'm not sure how much I want to say about how that will go down. I do just hope I haven't, shall we say, pushed this fic and I off a cliff?_**

 ** _Poor joke, I know._**

 ** _Anyways! I'm sorry for the over a month wait. I lost the first write of this - when will I learn to save more than one copy? - and had to rewrite, which is why I feel like it didn't really come together - I know I say this all the time, but honestly, I'm paranoid._**

 ** _If you liked this chapter, thank you! I'll be glad if I'm wrong._**

 ** _If you didn't like this chapter, I'm sorry. I'll make things right or will die trying._**

 ** _Please, don't be afraid to leave me what you think. I really do pay to mind the things you say._**


	13. Chapter 13

**All rights to Hannibal (TV) belong to NBC.**

 **Dedication goes to LisaxDeanshipper97 - I can never thank her enough for the help she gives!**

 **Special thanks to Kasanii, Mellimeldiseil,** **Quiet-Hoshi99, Sanja, inari of the skies, and Angrypancakegoddess for your support!**

 **I cannot stress how much your time and words mean to me.**

* * *

 _ **Unknown Location**_

White.

She lost herself in the color, but not in the way she used to.

Back then, white was beautiful. It was the color of the snow. Quiet. Pure. Renewing.

Now it is loud, deafeningly so, and isolating.

Stark white was the ceiling.

She recognized it better than anything else.

When she was in and out for - well, she couldn't tell how long she was out. Hours? Days? Weeks? She couldn't recall anything, save that blinding color and the shadowy outline of someone - someones? - from when she fought to the surface of consciousness before she was sent back into the dark with a faint sting in her arm.

Even when the fog of drowsiness began to fade and everything came into focus, the stark white was still there, waiting for her.

She memorized it, gazing into it as though it were the night sky - something she had been deprived of.

Someone fashioned her a pretty prison, but it was a prison all the same, taunting her with all the things she could not have.

A large, frosted glass window that had a design of calla lilies etched onto it. She could make out the light and with it the vague time of day and possible weather, but she couldn't see the sky. She tried to recall the look of the night's sky as she often would find in Wolf Trap, but after so many nights, her memory began to be as frosted as the window she gazed out of.

She considered breaking it once in a while, if only to see the night's sky.

Escape through the window wasn't an option.

Though she couldn't see much out the window, she could make out the decorative bars that made sure she was reminded of what she was.

When she would get sick of looking at it, unable to stomach being so close to what she wanted, what she once had - close to making a mistake that could make things worse - she would pace over old looking wood that whined under her weight even as it lessened. If not pacing, she would sit at her desk - wooden, but painted white to match the room. Sometimes she dared sit on its surface and run her hands over it, trying to find any faults.

Textures never became more interesting until she found herself in this room. She couldn't even guess how long she spent, touching the creaky floors, the smooth desk, even the plastered walls. Her most favorite thing to touch - the most beautiful part of her room - was her bed. It had a Chantilly bedspread, white with a soft beige tone, and after her body began to weaken most of her time was devoted to tracing her fingers over every bit of the pattern.

She traced it now even, waiting for dawn to break, for when one of the two doors to her room unlocked and opened.

When it does, she feels her heart stop for only a second before racing with excitement at the sight of dark hair.

Whatever she thinks of her captor, it is hard to not foster any fondness for the woman who brings her food and, if she is really good, books and a change of clothes.

In the woman's hands today was her breakfast. A poached egg and half of a grapefruit along with a small cup of what Bella had been told were vitamins. She used to care. She used to refuse to eat out of fear of being poisoned. Now, she keeps her eyes cast down. She doesn't even twitch when she sees the woman move. She just continues to silently eat, taking joy in getting half of a grapefruit instead of the usual quarter.

There is an anger that she bottles and buries within her that comes from the power she's given the woman, but she is too shaken from the last time she dared speak against her captor.

She didn't get food in a week or so, only a bottle of water every so often, rolled in through a small sliding panel of the bottom part of the entrance door.

The old Bella might have faired better, but alone - with nothing to hold onto save memories that only served as a reminder of what she no longer could have - and hungry, she broke enough to eat when she was next offered food.

She eats, takes her vitamins, and speaks if spoken to.

She'll play a good doll if it gives her more time.

She clung to her hope. She knew of the likeliness of that hope being futile, but she couldn't help it.

Hope was keeping her alive.

Bella made sure to eat slowly, silently, _obediently_.

As much as she wanted to hate the woman, her heart began to ache for the sound of her voice. _Interaction_. And, when the woman did speak, Bella had to close her eyes, breathing through the relief.

If she closed her eyes, the softness of the woman's voice, the youthful pitch, almost reminds her of Abigail.

"I was thinking," the woman began, moving towards the foot of the bed. Bella took it as an invitation to finally look at her, and, when their eyes met, Bella found herself both relieved and disappointed. She was relieved to see a gentleness to the woman's eyes, a kind smile playing on her lips, and a warmth to her cheeks. The disappointment came from having found any beauty in her at all.

Why couldn't she be ugly?

"-you might like another bath. Would you like that?"

She knew she had been bathed before.

Sometimes, after a meal, she would feel tiredness engulf her. She would slip far too easily into sleep, only to wake up with damp hair and the smell of vanilla and roses on her skin.

But this was the first time she was asked.

Bella could only assume this was an offering to consciously bathe herself.

So, she nodded.

A pleased smile bloomed onto the woman's lips, giving her one last look before turning her back to her.

Time stopped.

Bella's hold on the silver fork she'd been given tightened, tempted to lung forward, driving it into the woman's back - _Her neck, maybe?_

As if hearing her thought, the woman stopped, slowly turning around, raising a brow.

Bella's fingers loosened as she set the fork down, climbing off the bed, and following, three paces behind, to the second door.

When the woman opened it, passing through to allow her in, Bella's hand instinctively reached for the door frame, grasping onto it when her legs felt weak.

 _Color_.

The bathroom was a lot like her room. Bare. Empty.

But there was _color_.

She left a porcelain cage and entered an ocean.

Walls of sea glass green, soft light scattered by textured glass, a warmth coming from the thin pale yellow. . .

Bella, overwhelmed by the change of scenery, took a few moments to notice the bathtub. It was a shiny white claw foot tub. It matched the sink, the toilet.

Everything was perfectly neat and clean.

"How hot do you like it?"

Bella blinked slowly as she was pulled out of a bittersweet daze.

The woman only waited patiently by the tub, standing gracefully, weight shifted on one leg, one hand gingerly placed on the slightly bent elbow of her other arm.

 _Beautiful._ The thought made Bella's stomach before another heartbeat passes. Bella couldn't help but feel as though she always thought of this woman between heartbeats. One filled with admiration, the other with regret.

"As hot as it will go," Bella answered, her voice breathy and raw.

The woman nodded, watching her carefully before she reached across the tub, turning the knob.

The running water sounded like a rushing waterfall compared to the silence Bella dwelled in. The sound made her weak. The _heat_ from the rising steam made her weak.

And the woman took advantage of that, moving in front of Bella, who was slowly slipping, almost melting, onto the floor, shaking hands reaching out towards the tub, trying to reach past the woman. The woman's cool fingers curled over her shoulders, stopping her, steadying her, reminding her who's hands gave her this relief - who's hands could easily take it all away.

Those hands gathered her limp, oily hair, moving it over her shoulders, untying the thin ribbon that kept her long and loose white nightgown secure. When the woman moved the soft cotton off her shoulders, down her arms. Bella didn't want to move, but when dark eyes flashed to her own, she knew her orders. She drew her arms out of the sleeves, hoping that the woman wouldn't notice or be offended the goosebumps that rose - the air was too warm to blame it on the cold. By the time her arms were free, the gown just dropped, pooling at her bare feet.

She might have tried to stay present in another time, another life maybe.

Instead, Bella allowed her eyes to go out of focus, a numbness to set into her bones.

She hid so deep within herself, she truly became a doll, an empty body to be controlled.

When the water rose high enough, the woman helped her in, making sure she didn't slip or fall, making sure she didn't bruise her grey skin. And, for a moment, Bella came back, relishing in the warmth that nearly swallowed her. It melted the fear around her heart some, enough for her to dare sink below the surface, submerging herself under the water, hiding from her new reality. She stayed there until she heard the sound of something scraping against the wooden floor. Hesitantly, she rose, dragging her hands over her face, wiping away as much of the water from her eyes before opening them. Her eyes found the closed door, and, for a moment, she thought she might be alone.

Then she felt _her_ hands running through her hair.

Craning her neck back, she saw the woman, smiling down at her.

"You have such lovely hair. . ."

Bella closed her eyes tight, pretending that it wasn't her, pretending it was someone else, _anyone_ else.

She tried to picture Will.

She was so close to seeing his face in her mind, eyes telling her that she would get through this.

The woman tainted it, stealing the fantasy away, with her voice.

"You are so much more well behaved than those before you," the woman mused.

Images of three women flashed before Bella's eyes. Beside an image of herself, she couldn't see why she was chosen. She couldn't see what this woman saw in her.

It didn't matter anymore.

 _I'm already here_.

"I can count on my fingers right now, just listing how much better you are."

 _I don't want to be better. I just want to go home._

"You see clearly."

 _Not clear enough. I didn't see you._

"You see what I want you to become, what you are meant to become."

 _No._

Bella's eyes opened, gazing up at the woman with the dark eyes, who smiled so proudly at her. The woman had a vision, but it was false. Bella didn't know how she knew it, but she did.

 _This is not what I am meant to become. . ._

 _. . . But I know what I have to be for now. . ._

 _ **Behavioral Analysis Unit, Quantico, Virginia**_

There was a ringing in his ear. Distant. Sporadic. Painful.

He closed his eyes as if that could shut out the pain. Even with his eyes closed, the memory flooded him. Blurry flashing lights of police cars, an ambulance, the various voices rushing and distorting. The scene of the crime. His eyes move fast over the memory, fleeting until he notices _him._ The doctor, dexterous hands at work, performing surgery, trying to save the life of a man, greying by the minute, in his late twenties. He kept the grey man alive until an EMT came.

His name was Simon Holcroft, and he died before he could reach the nearest hospital.

He now lies still under a thin white sheet, Jimmy Price listing off his findings.

Will might have once cared to listen to the details, but all he could hear was his breathing.

Staring at the sheet, he felt the blood drain from his face, something in his heart dropping, wondering if this was going to be how he would find her.

Everything is muffled, foggy. Even Jack's rapid-fire, loud enunciations sounded as though he were far away.

All he could do was stare.

When he heard his name, likely for the fourth or fifth time, Will rakes his nails over an unshaven cheek, trying to scratch away some of the weariness. There wasn't much he could do. It was setting, carving into his skin, in his blood, in his bones. The paranoia. The defeat. The grief. All of it swallowed him whole, consuming him, leaving him in a void, as though everything that was light was absent.

This was how he was left.

Lost. . .

When his eyes met Jack's he felt a frustration begin to set in at the look of pity.

There were a million things Will wanted to say, to scream, to cry out. He wanted to point a finger at Jack, to blame him. Instead, all of his fingers curl, digging into the palms of his hands so hard he nearly broke skin. He swallows his rage, his guilt, knowing that he needed to stay calm, to stay as clear as possible.

For her.

"Do you need a moment?" Jack asked.

"I need more than a god damn minute," Will wanted to say. Instead of losing what little patience he had left, he cast his eyes down, shaking his head, motioning for Jimmy to continue, to get things over with. Jack was all too willing to continue with hopes that Will would put a stamp on it: Ripper or not?

It was disgusting.

Will had to turn his head to keep from showing the sickness that overcame him, watching how Jack was willing to pay any price for the Ripper, even if it was a life that wasn't his to give.

It had been _weeks_.

He spent most of his days pouring over the evidence of the "Dollmaker's" victims and what little evidence was left from Bella's own kidnapping. He spent less than half of that time searching for some organ harvester that he was already certain wasn't the Ripper, yet he still found him before her.

He knew better than to give into failure, but that didn't stop that dark and heavy feeling spreading through his veins.

Guilt.

Fear.

More guilt.

He was breeding his own misery, and, with it, more nightmares.

He would wake drenched in sweat, gasping for breathe. Tears carved rivers on his unwashed face, and apologies rained down from his lips when he found her spot empty, leaving him alone, fingers grasping onto the bare sheets, closing his eyes waiting for her touch to wake him from a nightmare. And, when she wouldn't, he would open his eyes, an empty and shallow breathe leaving him, when he would remember what happened.

Most nights, he would dream of the last time he saw her. Yet, where there once was forgiveness in her eyes, that same unconditional love she bared for him, there was a forlorn expression, betrayal riddled across her fragile features. And, when Jack called on him, she clung to him desperately. Tears streamed down her face as she begged him to stay. He never would. No matter how much he fought to stay, he would walk away, leaving her behind. If he closed his eyes, he could still hear her sobbing.

That alone was enough to wound him, but what _killed_ him was knowing that the nightmare wasn't completely false.

He left her.

He chose to pursue a false ripper and she might very well die because of it.

He took off his glasses, using his free hand to wipe at his face. His hand lingered over his eyes, his fingers drawing together, pinching the sides of his nose, letting a long breathe pass slowly through his mouth, trying to calm the storm beginning to brew within his chest. Yet, even after he lets his breathe leave, his lungs relax, he ground his teeth and lowered his hand, and opened his eyes, wincing at the brightness of the lights reflecting off of everything. From the dark tiled floor to the smooth metal table the dead man lied on.

He had an abundance of reflections to look at, but none of them reflected himself as clearly as the one with soft skin and a warm heart.

All of the others were . . . too cold, too dark, too distorted.

This was the problem he had searching for her.

Even in her absence, the silence that swells within it, memories of her echo loudly in his mind, distracting him. Will knew the only way to find her was to construct a wall between his heart and his mind, to stop himself from assuming every possible scenario of what her mind has become and focus on the one who took her.

But he couldn't.

He tried and tried and tried, but the picture wasn't coming together.

He could see the Dollmaker. He could understand the design: beauty, excellence, tragedy. The victims were dolls, something to dress up, to act out with, tools, not people. They were cherished, conditioned, fit for the houses built for them. They weren't to be harmed in the time it took to gather what was needed to put the scene together - the story was never the one in production, not with all the contemporary works that were becoming more and more popular.

But the pattern was changing.

He knew it the second he first placed himself in the mind of the killer.

Security was tightening up. Girls were given extra protection. The window of time to snatch one up was closing, which he assumed was the reason why Bella was taken. She didn't fit into the design in the present, but she would when everything was said and done.

 _If it gets to that_ , he reminded himself.

He failed her once.

He didn't intend for it to happen again.

 _I won't let it happen again_.

A wave of calm washed over him, knowing what he needed to do.

 _ **Hannibal Lecter's Office, Baltimore, Maryland**_

Hannibal Lecter nearly felt his heart being torn by the sharp edges of the shattered man that was Will Graham.

He was ruinous, even seated across from him, holding himself together with thin strings.

Will was held together by the smile Hannibal gave him, as though the slightest upturn of Hannibal's lips could bend their story to his will, as though he could promise, truly and honestly, Will's deliverance from these dark days and even darker nights. Will found himself trying to swallow the confusing rush of emotions that came with _just_ one look from the doctor, but they still rise and spread, soothing his all too pained soul.

In the seconds that followed, when Hannibal's expression broke into pain, face twisting with grief. The comfort of knowing he wasn't alone was enough to only shake out only one pain relieving pill and not two when he took his seat. His place was directly across Hannibal, staring into his eyes as close and intimate as he would with his own reflection.

Will used to shy from his gaze, shoulders hunched over, hiding from the man's all too knowing eyes. Now? Now, he kept his eyes straight and steady, unapologetic in his search for something he didn't quite know just yet.

Hannibal didn't miss this.

He didn't miss the way Will's body relaxed, sinking into his chair, head tilting a little to the right tiredly, still keeping his eyes straight. He didn't miss the way Will forced his lips into an exhausted smile, the muscles around his mouth twitching, quaking with strain. Hannibal didn't miss the message, the dedication of this single act: _f_ _or you._

The unspoken words sound more beautiful than most of what Hannibal has ever heard. They touch his heart, feeling of smooth silk, tasting of the sweetest delicacies. It left him leaning forward until his elbows rest on his knees, his body reaching for Will. He allowed his suits to fall, revealing his mind, his heart, briefly, if only for Will Graham. He stopped himself after a few seconds, before his own lips could move. Hannibal silenced himself with the promise that one day they would both be bare, vulnerabilities exposed for the other to memorize.

For now, they would sit and speak just as they have before and will again.

"This works best if you are honest. With yourself and me," Hannibal insisted, allowing himself to relax into his seat, just as Will had.

He could spend hours in silence with Will, no words passing through the space between them. However, he knew Will came here with a purpose.

"As my psychiatrist or as my friend?"

"Both."

A shared smile passed between them, but it only lasted a few moments before Will's face slackened with defeat.

"I need you."

As soon as the words passed his lips, he felt red begin to return to his cheeks.

"I need your eyes," he corrected himself with, turning away for the first time, eyes searching the room for something to look at, so long as it wasn't Hannibal's face. "You were the last one to see her," he added after he gathered himself.

Hannibal nodded, eyes falling shut at the memory, with it came the feeling of falling, a paranoia that came with not knowing when it would end. The feeling was as unsettling as it was intoxicating. Exotic by nature, the way these two pulled the strings of his heart, playing a symphony of emotions to discover. It was their song, which now sounded like a requiem, reflecting on someone who was living.

And she was living in his eyes.

One could see her big brown eyes and think her a doe, but he caught a glimpse of her teeth, sharp, vicious, capable of so much more.

 _Yes. She's alive,_ Hannibal decided, opening his eyes and looking to Will, watching him closely, wondering if Will knew the woman, if he could see the untapped potential this woman had.

He had to wonder who would she be after this.

As upset and frustrated as he was, finding that someone had snatched her up, locking her away as though she were something to be caged and tamed, the worst feeling of it all, the most provocative towards his anger was jealousy. Jealous that someone else had her, that someone else was shaping her, grinding her down, shaping her and placing her in a role that could be filled by someone else. Anyone else.

He wondered if her scars would be covered, glazed over, polishing her up like a porcelain doll. The thought struck a cord in his heart. The thought of her being wasted. The scars that held her story, stories he had yet to hear, being sanded down and smoothed over, erasing her meaning. . .

. . . It was disgusting.

If he was wrong, if she died, he would strip her killer down, dragging death out slowly, making certain that the feeling of being taken from, of being robbed, would be the last emotion to pass through the heart.

 _If_ _,_ he reminded himself.

Remembering Will, hearing the aching silence that rested between him, Hannibal rose. He turned his eyes away, predicting Will's discomfort as he removed his suit jacket, gingerly folding it and placing it in his seat before moving across the room to the back of his office, centered against the wall directly behind his desk. It was small, made of rosewood, a dark detail against the rich red wall. He rarely opened it. Counting the most recent times, twice was it with Will, once with Alana. This would be Will's third.

"I don't think Jack would like that our sessions are spent over a bottle of wine," Will pointed out dryly as Hannibal knelt down, procuring two glasses and a dark bottle of red. Dry to match Will's habitual tone.

"What Jack doesn't know. . ." Hannibal trailed off, looking ever his shoulder, finding Will trying his best to scowl. He couldn't miss the relieved glint in the man's blue eyes, even at a distance.

"I said I needed your eyes," Will reminded. Hannibal didn't look up as he began pouring the wine. "I need to be focused. I need to-"

"Rest," Hannibal finished, holding out a filled glass to Will. "You cannot think straight hunting two killers," he reasoned.

Will took the glass, but set it down defiantly. Hannibal didn't know whether he found it thrilling or rude. Perhaps a little of both.

"You're my-" Will stopped, confused as to where they fell. None of the labels felt right. None of them felt honest. "You think you can find _the Dollmaker_?" Will asked, his nose wrinkling at the name. What else were they to call their killer besides the name Freddie Lounds all too easily coined?

"I already found your Dollmaker once," Hannibal reminded, as though it were simple and weightless. "I even suspect that is one of the reasons why Bella was taken. The killer was there. As well as Bella attempts to make herself invisible, one look on Ms. Lounds' website would make her at least familiar, marking her as, at the very least, tied to you, a known FBI agent. The killer might have thought we were close to a discovery. Taking Bella would be two birds with one stone."

That was when Will took a drink.

Hannibal clicked his tongue before he raised his glass, slowly taking a drink, savoring the flavor.

He made a promise to himself to teach Will to do the same at a later time.

For now, they talk.

 _ **Unknown Location**_

She shouldn't have asked.

 _You cannot be haunted if you aren't aware of any ghosts._

But she was aware.

She was haunted.

Nine girls, not three. For every one put on display, there were two that were discarded, cast aside for their faults, for their "resistance."

Bella shivered, hearing the woman's voice ringing in her ears still, seeing the shapes her mouth made, letting the warning fall from her lips.

She tried to behave, to bury every emotion she felt, but it was hard. In solitude, the only company she had were her own thoughts and feelings, each louder and more vibrant than she thought imaginable.

On the days that the woman is gone - Bella trained her ears, pressing them against the floor or the door, waiting for the sound of a door opening or shutting, then waiting to hear of any movement - Bella found herself crying often. She never imagined a loneliness as loud as this.

Back in the days at the diner, she would see strangers, co-workers. She had books, music, a mop to keep her busy. Here, she had nothing, not unless she behaved. Even then, with the slightest provocation, everything could be ripped away, leaving her starved and desperate.

She began to hate herself for craving even the briefest moments where the woman would come to her, loathing the rush of excitement that overwhelmed her, the betrayal that flooded her when she was left alone. For that, she was glad that the woman removed almost every reflective surface in her room. She doubted she could stomach looking at herself, what she has become.

 _Tonight is the worst_ , she thought with a wave of nausea nearly drowning her from trying to stifle a breathe of relief at being touched.

The woman's arms were around her, for just a second, as she drew measuring tape over various parts of Bella's body. Despite how her touch draw goosebumps over her flesh, for a moment, Bella is comforted, taking solace in the warmth of someone else - someone real - but the relief was short after remembering who she was, who she was to Bella.

The numbness would follow. At first she welcomed it. She thought that numbness was once synonymous with relief, but it wasn't. It left her feeling lesser, more empty, as though a part of her body, her heart, or her soul was absent. It left her too fatigued to be furious, too sluggish to fight. All she has the energy to do was think, but she was beginning to fear that it was a curse as well. Her mind would take her back to her home, to the family she made, to the one she wanted to make, but every time she was pulled back, she was still in the white room, cold and alone. It was why she couldn't sleep anymore. Waking up was too painful.

"Would you like to try on the costume?"

The woman didn't look at Bella, even as she dragged the back of her hand over Bella's cheek. She was too busy admiring her "doll" to realize there was something still living within it. Bella fought the urge to curl her lips back and bare her teeth. Instead, she closed her eyes and tried to feel less damaged. When she heard the rustling of fabric, Bella made the mistake of opening her eyes, catching sight of the white feathers, the embroidered fake jewels. She might have thought it beautiful if she didn't know what it was meant for.

 _A pretty dress for a pretty corpse_ , Bella thought to herself.

She didn't feel pretty.

But, that didn't matter to the woman.

It wouldn't matter to many people, she supposed.

She could almost see it now. The headlines, the shallow pity people would shed for only a few minutes before moving on with their lives. She didn't have too many people to mourn her. The people that mattered to her, the people she mattered to, would have to move on. That's what life and time did. No matter how desperate one clung to the past, it would slip away, leaving only echoes to haunt the present.

How long would this haunt her if she made it out?

"Fits like a glove!" the woman declared, a proud smile on her face as she finished with the ties in the back.

Bella felt her heavy heart sinking, feeling as though the ribbon were around her neck, tightening, giving her taste of what was soon to come.

Still, she reaches for hope.

Only, this hope has less to do with the smiling faces of those she loves as she tries to make out shapes from the window, and more towards lying, flat on her back, at night, staring at the white ceiling, picturing various violences against the woman who looks at her as a tool, an instrument, something only for her to use. There was no empathy in this woman's eyes. They shone too bright with ambition to stop and see the price of her art. The first time she saw it, she knew there was no point in crying, in falling to her knees and begging for mercy.

So, she didn't cry. She only stared, hollowly at the bare wall beyond the woman's shoulders. Even when she felt the woman's hands on her cheeks, she didn't focus her eyes or energy.

She, for just a second, wondered about the three women that made it to the stage. Did they feel the same hollowness that she felt inside? Do they cling to hope just like she did? Did they tell themselves that they would make it out or did they just give up? It couldn't be painful, the way they were killed. There was no brutality. The other six, Bella wasn't sure of. When thinking of the six, Bella only recalled something the woman said when she asked if there had been others.

"I can be kind," the woman told her then.

 _Can_ , Bella reminded herself, _is different than 'am'. Can is the ability to, not the nature of._

"H-how much longer?" Bella heard herself ask. Her voice hoarse, foreign sounding to her own ears. It was nothing like the smooth internal monologue she kept inside her head.

The woman's smile waned, her blinking becoming a little too paced, too controlled, slow and unnatural.

She made a mistake.

 _ **France-Merrick Performing Arts Center, Baltimore, Maryland**_

She always loved the rush that came with productions, especially in the costume shop.

Even now, as late in the evening as it was, overworked costume makers were rushing about, checking measurements, analyzing, calculating for the perfect fit for their performers, most of whom wore a professional expression, used to this kind of chaotic efficiency, an array of adjustments, everyone working over the edge to make something perfect. If only for a little while.

Across the room, she spotted a dancer. Dark hair, dark eyes, a look of determination in her eyes as she was measured. Graceful, disciplined, _strong_.

A thought, passed through her mind, a temptation lasting one beat of the heart before it was gone.

She didn't need a strong woman.

She needed a tragic woman, and a tragic woman she had.

She was just angry.

Disappointed would be the right word, she supposed, reflecting on the last moments she spent with _her_. She tried to tell herself that it was only natural for one to want to know how much time they had left. Time to find peace, acceptance. It would be better that way. It would be real. Yet, a part of her couldn't let go of her frustration. She liked to think that this relationship between them, between an artist and medium, would bare a sort of intuitive connection. And, for a time, in those moments when the woman would close her eyes and allow herself to become a vessel for her artistic vision, she thought it was there.

But then that woman just had to open her mouth, and in a brittle tone, shatter the fantasy and pull her into reality.

Reality was, this woman didn't look at her with acceptance or understanding.

She looked at her as if she were something. . . monstrous, ravenous even.

 _I'm not a monster_.

"Irene!"

She turned her head towards the director, a smile coming onto her face.

She always tried to avoid growing attached to anyone, knowing that after "tragedy" struck that she would quit and move on somewhere else, but it was hard not to like him.

Valentin Laurent, a romantic name in itself, one that matched him and his messy artist look. His shirts always loose, sleeves rolled up, a testimony to his hands-on work ethic. Messy, but beautiful. He lost himself in the art too. The ballet was all he had. No true friends, no true family, no legacy save the memories of his work, his productions. He was alone, just like her. The only difference was their medium. She wanted to leave something behind, something beautiful and unforgettable. She wasn't satisfied with just doing a reedition. She wanted to put _life_ into the work.

Even if if she hadn't done the things she had, if she wouldn't do the things she planned on doing, she wouldn't have pursued him. He was an artist. His life was no longer his. It would be a cruel thing to take his attention away from the ballet.

"Irene is one of our new additions, but she is, by far, one of the greatest I have ever seen," Valentin introduced her as, twisting his upper body to make eye contact with - her heart shook, her smile faltering with fear, recognizing the sharply dressed man.

An image flashed before her eyes. Him. With a hand gently placed on her cheek, head tilted forward, he looked so deep into her eyes he might have been lost. Her. Staring back at him, eyes truly _glistening_ with so much emotion, she looked like the definition of tragic.

It was then Irene felt a slight pain in her heart, wondering if this was the Prince Siegfried to her Odette that was waiting, wilting away, in a house outside of Emmitsburg.

"Irene, meet 'annibal Lecter," Valentin introduced in return as the two neared her, a proud smile on his face.

Irene had to make certain to look courteous, trying to keep this nauseating guilt from rising.

The dancers she took didn't leave behind others in their lives. Maybe a parent or friend at most - funerals attended by coworkers rather than loved ones.

"Pleasure to meet you, Irene," the man, Hannibal, said, a polite and slightly charming smile on his face. She remembered he had an accent, but hearing it up close, the smoky sound of it.

"Pleasure," she said, echoing his greeting, her voice taut rather than its usual velvety sound.

She wanted to curse him.

With any other woman she took, she was able to be unfeeling, to consider only the beauty of what she would create. That focus permitted her meticulousness, but even now, as the curtain call drew near, she felt frazzled, on the edge, forgetting the details - she nearly forgot her safety measures, her "tools" to make certain that on Bella's opening and closing night she wouldn't be disturbed.

She would have thought this man would be less refined than he was, yet he was more put together than she was.

He wore a long overcoat, the four horn buttons on the right side, similar to the one he shrouded Bella in many nights ago. The cut of it was sharp, bold despite its tan tone, elegantly defined with flapped pockets and breast pocket. The lapels of it matching with his bulky tie tucked into the low collar, five buttoned vest. His three pieced suit taunted onlookers with dark and confusing patterns. Staring at them, she could hear the words that were drilled into her when she was just barely picking up the basic skills of sewing. "The outside appearance, the things we dress ourselves in, often reflect the inside." She wondered if this was an accurate reflection of him.

 _Perhaps he looks like a Siegfried with his fine fabrics and attractive foreign tongue but is a Rothbar underneath it all. If your suit crumbled to dust, would you still draw in others as you do now?_

For a second, she wanted to belief he was, that Bella was a blind fool, that she was saving a pretty bird from falling into the hands of someone destructive.

But it didn't matter.

 _Her story isn't the one being told. It doesn't matter._

Looking back to the man, meeting his eyes, she found something strange. Something knowing. There was a depth to his gaze, a knowingness to the elegant curl of his lips.

Her heart counted the time. It took fifteen heartbeats before Valentin's attentions were drawn away to someone else. His eyes never lingered on her. She tried not to let the wound of being outside his attentions more often than not fester.

He excused himself to go and fix whatever imperfections he saw, leaving her.

And him.

Alone.

He changed before her eyes, standing just a bit taller, but it might as well be a mountain of a difference. He looked as though the world could shatter to pieces, and he would still be standing, impervious to its destruction.

She frowned.

Why was he not in ruins? Why was he not distraught over someone snatching up Bella Bennet and caging her like the wounded little bird she was?

"I heard about what happened to that woman you were here with," she began, testing the waters of their relation.

"Then I suppose you know what will follow her," he said, a bone chilling emptiness to his voice. The expressionlessness of his face. He looks like the word sharp. His words cutting into her flesh, tearing her apart with just a look of his eyes. Dark. Dangerous. They weren't the kind to swallow someone whole, not in the way hers were. No. He had teeth, and she could almost bet they were as sharp as the rest of him. He looked of a delicious pain, and even someone as ravenous as her knew better than to stand too close.

"The FBI," she said, her voice weak, undermined by his own composure.

"And more."

His words catch and were lifted, carried by the soft air. Despite the delicateness of the sound, she could taste the warning.

"Her kidnapper, this _Dollmaker_ -" There was venom dripping from his voice, and she could feel the hairs on the back of her neck prickle as they began to stand. "-was desperate." She hated how right he was. It wasn't entirely planned out, she'd give him that, but she was certain not to leave anything behind or take much with her. "I can only assume they thought themselves close to being found out." She had. That was one of the reasons why she took Bella rather than risk another dancer. Ruffling the FBI whilst still having someone terribly tragic to put on display.

"Thought?" she echoed, trying hard not to look bothered.

He allowed his impassive expression to fall, if only to allow a slight upturn to his lips, subliminal pride showing.

"A coincidence. Had she not been taken, the bureau would have never known their killer to work here."

She felt as though there were shards of glass running through her veins.

Out of a rush of self preservation, she tried to give a sweet and ignorant smile, blinking slowly as though she was not following. But she was. She was rushing past the face of his words, going straight to the bare skeleton of it all.

 _He knows._

"He works here?" She asked, letting her fear pour out in hopes of it being read in her favor.

He spared her no sympathy, still standing, unmoved by her attempt at timidity, watching her silently, unamused.

 _Not a Siegfried, indeed._

She looked behind him, half expecting there to be armed officers waiting to come and drag her away. She decided, in that moment, that she would not fight. She would not become something wild and feral and _ugly_. There were none, though. Switching her eyes back to the good doctor, she couldn't settle on whether she was thankful or wary over that.

"Where are you hiding her?"

Irene didn't take the bait, instead she gave a look of mostly confusion and slight apprehension, dark eyes widening despite her brows pulling down. Fear that widened her vision.

"You can't think that I-"

"I fully expect you to tell me."

There was an anger in her. One that filled her lungs, burning her with every breath. She could feel the rise and fall of her chest quicken. She could feel her face begin to contort, as if to display every ounce of rage in her body in one single expression, but she stopped, smoothening her features before he could speak again, before she could find the right words to say.

There was no script for a found criminal.

"Otherwise," he began again, his voice smooth, velvety, appealing despite her growing hatred. "Her beauty will be wasted."

She hated how simply he spoke.

She hated how she felt as though she were a child.

"How?" she heard herself ask, eyes, despite her resolve, curious.

He smiled, head tilting just slightly. It was prideful, but not arrogant enough to be called smug.

"You enjoy your work."

"Yes."

"You want to continue it."

"Yes."

"Then I would suggest you make the choice to continue rather than allow yourself to be caught, than allow Bellamy Bennet to rot away while you face trial - you will be in for life for what they will make you out to be."

An image flashed before her eyes, her most favorite of girls, lying on the bed or on the ground, curled into herself with pain carved onto her pretty face. The nails Irene so attentively made strong would would weaken until they would fall off. Her warm skin would grey as she began to wither away. Her beautiful body would collapse to dust, all out of a selfish and childish decision to discard her toys before they were taken away, if only so no one else could play with them.

She hated this.

She hated how he knew just what to say, what to do, to make someone like her fall into place.

 _String me up as though I am a puppet for your own show. The irony._

"What will you give in return?" she asked wryly, looking back to her work desk, the fabrics, the measuring tape, the sewing machine. . .

"Your freedom."

Her eyes flashed to him, red lips curling back, exposing pearly teeth, unsure how to react to his offer. She settled on vigilance.

"It would be a shame for your work to come to an end this early. They were beautiful."

She felt her heart begin to sting and ache. It was just one word. _Beautiful_. It's all she ever wanted to be, all she ever wanted to make.

When she took Bellamy Bennet, she expected the woman to be honored, to appreciate the _beauty_ she would become, the perfection. She didn't fight, but Irene could see it in Bella's eyes. The tears. The sorrows. The _ugliness_.

"So that's the deal?" she asked, feeling a sickening mix regret and relief. "I tell you where she is, and I walk free?"

"I would suggest running, but yes."

She half believed this to be a trap, that she'd tell him, he'd call in the police, and that would be that. Yet, if that were true, even if she didn't leave, she would still be apprehended. This wasn't luck. It might have been the first time, but now? This man standing before her, he _knew_.

She had nothing to lose.

Not even Bella.

 _She was never mine to take._

Half in grief, looking him in the eyes, straight faced, she gave a single nod.

"There's a house under my name. It's just outside of Emmitsburg. Should be easy to pull up," she said as she moved to the other side of her desk. "Go off to Valentin."

"You're leaving," he concluded, brows raised in slight irritation.

"You said to run," she pointed out, trying not to look him in the eyes. Her brain was already suffering under the bulk of a thousand and one questions, most of which along the lines of: Who are you? She didn't need to know the answer. All she needed was to stop by the bank and take out as much as possible, to get on the road as fast as possible.

Only when his back was turned did she raise her eyes, watching him stroll across the shop's smooth floor.

Her heart swelled with a storm of emotions, and the closest she could identify was the feeling of having a brush with death, leaving her thankful, but robbed.

 _ **Irene Matlin's House, Emmitsburg, Maryland**_

It had been over a day - maybe two - since she last saw the woman.

This wasn't the first time it happened, but it was the first where she wasn't given water.

When she first asked about how much longer she had left, how much longer she would have to live before she took the stage, she was prepared for the worst. At the time, the woman left her quickly, making sure not to leave even a feather behind to give Bella something to look at, to distract her from her own suffering. She thought that was the end of it, that she would still get her poached egg and grapefruit in the morning - maybe just the grapefruit - and that she would never speak again.

She thought the woman sensed the soft flicker of fire within, the one threatening to turn to flame the second death drew too close.

It wasn't much of a plan, but she had nothing else to go on.

If she escaped - if she even managed that - she still had no idea where she was going. She was too weak to lift anything particularly heavy. Her muscles were no longer what they used to be. She would get caught if she couldn't make sure she wasn't followed, and there was only one _real_ way to ensure that.

She couldn't do it.

But she wanted too.

There were times when she tried to find enough bravery, enough courage to do something her normal self would call stupid. She tried and tried and tried, knowing that if the stars aligned then maybe, just maybe, she would get away. Yet, the second she found a shred of strength, she was lost, left with all her doubts.

She was weak.

Aside from having to fit into something meant for someone thinner and taller, starving her out was a good way to tilt the scale out of her favor and into her captors.

And _she_ was strong.

Bella saw the muscles on her arms, on her legs. Not entirely vicious in size or definition, but she knew that someone didn't need either to be able to lift a body twice their size or, at the very least, knock them down. And Bella knew she'd go down far to easily.

She didn't need a mirror to know her own frailty - a different kind than she was used to.

She didn't know what else to do except draw her legs to her chest and close her eyes. She didn't find sleep, too scared that if she did, the last thing she would see would be this room. She already decided that, when the time comes, she'd break her fingers trying to claw the woman's eyes out or cut her own skin breaking a window and either jumping out of it or using a shard as a knife.

She didn't care.

She'd break her own body trying to stay alive, even if it ended with the opposite, to spite _her_.

The amount of pleasure she felt at the mere thought of defiance was intoxicating, bringing an unhealthily cruel smile to her face.

That smile faded at the sound of something crashing.

She felt a surge of energy, a jolt in her muscles, and before she could process her own thoughts, her own movements, she was sitting up, back arched, palms pressed into the mattress and legs twitching, wanting so badly to do what she did best, still knowing that there was nowhere to run, nowhere to hide.

What dissipated her fear was the sound of heavy boots striking the floor, a drumming too fast to be one person, despite it muffled from being on the other side of the door, on the other side of the floor.

Her heart began to match the rhythm of the boots. She felt her weary heart quicken in the sharp bursts of what she could only assume were doors being knocked open. It came to a clear stop when she heard a loud and booming voice that could only belong to Jack Crawford. The rhythm began again, this time louder, closer.

And then she heard her name, called out by _him._

She never heard so sweet a sound.

If she closed her eyes, she could see him.

Her lips parted, but all that came out was heavy breathes. She didn't realize she was crying until a sob tore through her lungs, and with it, her voice was returned.

"Will!" she cried, choking on the single syllable. She scrambled off the bed, rushing at the door so quickly, her body collided with it in a brutal burst of pain. "Will!" She shouted again, the scratchiness of her voice cutting through the silence she once knew.

" _Bella!_ "

She nearly collapsed.

 _He's here. . . He's actually here._ . .

Her tears were carving rivers down her cheeks. Her lungs burning with all the screams and cries that were strangled and stolen from her. Unthinking, unknowing, she pressed herself against the door, so close, so _agonizingly_ close, as though if she tried hard enough she would pass through.

She was too ruinous to hear him at first, his rushed words, telling her to get back away from the door, asking if she understood. She didn't know how many times he said it by the time she gave a brittle "Yes."

Time slowed the second the door was knocked off its hinges.

With wide eyes, parted lips, and tender lungs, she took what felt like her first breath when she saw _him_.

His hair was tangled, overgrown. His clothes, wrinkled, stained a little if she looked close enough - she didn't. And his face. . . There were dark circles under his eyes and worsening wrinkles at the corners of his eyes and between his eyebrows.

He was a mess, falling apart before her eyes, but she couldn't help but feel as though he was the most beautiful thing she ever saw.

He took one step towards her, one slow step, cautious, mindful of every possible state she could be in.

Alana had told him to be careful, to be gentle, more so than he ever had before. Looking at her now, he understood.

She looked as though the slightest of touches would shatter her.

There were five steps between them, but by the time he reached the third, she moved towards him, swaying, unbalanced, unsure. He tried to hold her, but she stopped him, her feeble arms pressing against his chest, her hands latching onto his shoulders.

He froze, watching her, how her shaken eyes flickered over him, locking on her right hand, her fingers grasping tightly onto his shirt, fabric shifting under her fingers. Then, her eyes moved to her other hand, watching as though she was no longer in control of her own body, as though she was just as much an observer of her own actions as he, when she drew her fingers to his unshaven face, a fragile smile hesitantly forming on her chapped lips.

She looked him in the eyes, brown eyes meeting blue, and then her body fell against his.

Instinctively, he drew his arms around her, holding her close.

The second his arms were around her, he felt her sigh, just as she always did right before she fell asleep.

He knew she was awake - He knew by how tightly she was clutching onto him - because, for now, the nightmare was over.

At least, the worst of it was.

* * *

 ** _Yikes. Yeah, so I'm like suuuuuper late, as per usual, but, in my defense - actually, I have no defense. I was just hit with an agonizing case of writer's block._**

 ** _Anyways, I know this isn't my usual style, that there is a lot of time missing, but it is that way for a reason. In addition to that, I don't want you to think that the happenings in this chapter are said and done with. They aren't. The effect this has isn't just this chapter and the next._**

 ** _However, the next chapter is picking up some of the effects of this one._**

 ** _In short, we'll be starting on t_** ** _he road to recovery._**

* * *

 ** _ONCE AGAIN. . ._**

 ** _Thank you for all the reviews. I know I don't update enough, but they do help keep motivation! I love hearing your thoughts, theories, and comments!_**

 ** _No matter how short or long, I read them all - probably more than I should - and they really do make a difference._**

 ** _So, thank you, and I hope you'll stick around to read the next_** ** _chapter because I am SO EXCITED!_**


	14. Chapter 14

**All rights to Hannibal (TV) belong to NBC.**

 **To all of you who celebrate today: Merry Christmas!**

 **This chapter is dedicated to LisaxDeanshipper97.**

 **Special thanks to Chocoholics Unite, Mellimeldiseil, Twelia, Codenameyikes** **, inari of the skies, and Ghouly-Girl, Sevotharte, and Imperia Phantomhivefor your support!**

 **Also, the television timeline and this one are a wee bit different.**

* * *

 _ **Hannibal Lecter's Office, Baltimore, Maryland**_

Will looked marginally better as he settled into his seat.

Hannibal never missed the way others dressed, the things they told him without speaking, especially when it came to Will Graham.

And today, Will came to him with honesty, with loyalty.

He forwent the jacket he must have been wearing before, the underlying navy vest hanging on his shoulders unbuttoned, a beautiful contrast to the stone blue shirt underneath, one that compliments the very color of his own eyes. He is just the right amount undone, in Hannibal's eyes. His dark hair tousled, but, at least, brushed, and his beard was less unruly - something that was changed in the past twenty four hours judging by the smell of aftershave. Though a part of him wanted to cringe at the smell, he was too pleased at this undoing, the trust Will is placing in him.

He did not hesitate when Hannibal offered him a drink.

His hesitance came when Hannibal asked him what brought on this impromptu visit.

Will's sigh tells him it wasn't out of reluctance, but out of loss.

"I found her outside at three in the morning," he began, closing his eyes, allowing the memory to flow into his mind and out his lips.

Slowly, his mind flooded with the sight of her sitting on the porch, staring up at the night sky with a look of agonized wonder. He would have thought she was sleepwalking if it wasn't for Winston, who was lying beside her, his head lovingly placed on her lap as she gently ran her fingers through his fur. She didn't acknowledge him, not until he sat beside her. When she looked at him, when she _finally_ looked at him, his worries left him.

When she looked at him, he was untouchable.

"I tried not to wake you," she told him, an apologetic and weak smile on her face. He didn't know whether she expected a response from him, and, if she did, he didn't know what to say. It didn't matter, though. His silence must not have bothered her too much, as the next thing she did was move, laying her head on his shoulder.

He could remember the breath that left him, heavy and tired and so very relieved.

He didn't ask her why she was awake. Based on what she was willing to recount about her time in that white room, he imagined that he, too, would want to drown on the fresh air far from the city. These were the first nights where she could see the sky without a window to separate her from it. It was already hard enough for her to sleep under a white ceiling in a colorless room (he made a note to pick up paint sometime this week). at the hospital, she didn't slept easily, not without taking medicine, which she took all too reluctantly. Despite the dark circles under her eyes, the tire carving its way onto her face, she would go as long as she could before he had to ask, his voice _pleading_ , for her to just take it.

"Why do you think she fights sleep?"

"Aside from nightmares?" Will asked wryly, watching as the wine sloshed around in his glass from his half-hearted attempt at swirling it. "I think she's scared."

"Of?"

"Of going to sleep and waking up back in that room with that woman," Will answered before bringing the glass to his lips, taking a gulp far too large to truly savor the taste. Hannibal forgave him. _Consolation_ , he told himself when Will let out a breath, small, restrained, but entirely fragile. Here was a man just on the edge of shattering. "I keep thinking of how many times she went to sleep, dreaming of getting out and waking up there." He was speaking in a whisper, but even then, Hannibal could hear the scathing hatred in Will's voice. "How many times did she wake up and realize that we-" He closed his eyes.

There was a burning in his chest. Shame. Guilt. Rage. All of it rising, almost frothing from his mouth.

To Hannibal's disappointment, Will swallowed it all, burying it deep as he could.

" _Will_ ," Hannibal called, leaning forward until his elbows touched his knees. Will's eyes slowly slipped from his glass to Hannibal's, and he was met with a profound amount of - of what, he could not exactly determine. But he recognized it. They were a reflection, an echo, of Bella's own eyes, looking so strongly, _feeling_ so strongly.

For a man as refined as Hannibal, there was something so untamed about the look in his eyes in moments like this.

 _How could a man possibly convey that much emotion with eyes alone?_

Will shifted in his seat, trying to draw up the walls that kept almost everyone out. He thought to reach for his glasses, to place them low on his nose and hide behind the rim of them. He couldn't. Not under those eyes.

He was seen.

He was _exposed_.

"I want to help her." It was one of the few things he said with certainty. "I just don't know how," he admitted, his resolve crumbling to dirt. "I even considered going back to my teaching post - to staying there."

"Considered," Hannibal repeated as a single brow pulled into a fine arch.

"Considered," Will confirmed with traces of defeat slipping into his tone. There was a shift in the look in his eyes, a changing of the tides. Something resentful appeared in them, but not towards Hannibal. Never for him. "I can't. . ." He trailed off, not knowing how to put the feeling that has been weighing heavy on his weary heart into words. "I can help," he settled on. "No one else has gotten this close to catching him."

Cold blond hair and stormy grey eyes flashed before his eyes, but Hannibal blinked, not a fault on his concerned face.

"Whether I'm teaching or chasing a killer, I can't help her. Not in the way she needs." Will leaned back into his chair, closing his eyes before he began to massage his temples in gentle circles. His perpetual migraine does not lighten in the slightest. Not until his eyes opened, finding Hannibal's. "That's why I'm here."

Hannibal's expression did not betray the thrill of this admission, but he did allow a look of understanding to cross his features. He looked every bit a savior. Not entirely surprised, yet all the more willing to do what he was asked.

"She won't accept help. Not from a stranger," Will added, thinking back to her time in the hospital. She wouldn't give full honesty. Filtered truths, telling her nurses and doctors with a remarkable resolve everything that she imagined would get her out of another white room faster. Her ability to lie was somewhat unsettling, but as soon as they were alone, she would let it fall and look at him. A silent promise of honesty. Fidelity.

"Alana Bloom has a familiar face," Hannibal challenged.

Will scoffed, shaking his head and letting a bitter laugh escape his lips. Hannibal knew Bella enough to know that she would not trust Alana Bloom. Not in the way she trusted Will. Not in the way she trusted him. Even with all his charm and expertise, she almost turned him away.

"Alana Bloom isn't someone she trusts. You are," Will insisted, a pleading look in his eyes that was unnecessary.

Hannibal was already imagining how he might lead her, how he might help shape her into something new.

"You imagine she would share an intimate trauma with me rather than you?" It was a genuine question, a genuine concern.

"No," Will answered, breathing the word with some relief at his own certainty. "I imagine she will be more willing to accept you. Whatever help you might offer."

"More willing," Hannibal repeated, a ghost of a smile on his lips. He was met with a knowing glance. A silent reflection on Bella's reluctance. It was not a joke, but he felt his heart quicken as though one were made. A shared truth. A shared experience. A shared companion.

"So," Will began, breathing a bit easier, already knowing the answer but needing to hear it aloud. "Would you be willing to. . ." He doesn't want to sound as though he were asking Hannibal to watch over her, as though he didn't trust her enough to not be watched. "-to keep her company." It still felt wrong. "I can't - I'm not what she needs, but you _might_ be." It didn't feel as painful to say as he thought it would be.

Hannibal's back straightened, looking taller, stronger. He looked every bit the rock she needed to hold onto. He looked of comfort, of stability.

"I would never turn away a friend in need."

Will gave a rueful look. "I wouldn't doubt that. I do doubt her giving you a chance to turn her away."

"You doubt her ability to ask for help."

"No. She has the ability. It's her willingness to do so."

Hannibal remembered the first time she came to him, doe eyed and terrified by just a hint of his nature.

"Why do you feel she is unwilling?"

"I feel-" Will stopped in a moment of clarity. " _She_ _feels_ she is someone else if she does."

There was suddenly a distance in his eyes, a slip in when he was.

"Will," Hannibal said, slowly, drawing out the single syllable with a gentleness. The man blinks until he was present again. "Is something wrong?" He knew the answer, but Will shook his head all the same.

It would be a lie to say Hannibal was not disappointed, but, for now at least, he would permit dishonesty.

"Well," he continued, settling down in his chair in hopes of Will doing the same. He wanted him to relax. He wanted Will to trust him. Will allowed a taste of what that might be, but only after finishing off his drink. "It would be remiss of me not to offer my help all the same."

He would offer to be her guide, to lead this doe-eyed girl into the forest so that she might become acquainted with who she could be.

 _ **Abigail Hobb's Room,** **Port Haven Psychiatric Facility,** **Baltimore, Maryland**_

"For you or for me?" Abigail's first words upon her arrive, nodding to the box of cupcakes in Bella's hands, the bag with two glass bottles hanging from them.

She recognized the gift immediately.

Two cupcakes and lemonade, more expensive than she'd usually spend on sweets and better than what was served. It was the first thing they ever knowingly shared.

"I'm surprised you remembered," Bella said casually, moving to the nightstand by Abigail's bed, unpacking their sweets. She was quiet in the process, so much that Abigail began to wonder if things had changed, if she would have to become what Bella was to her.

As if hearing her thoughts, Bella's eyes rose, something foreign yet familiar within them.

"How could I forget?" Abigail asked, her voice barely above a whisper. She tilted her head one way then the other, trying to see her better, to see how she reacted. Bella's lips curled, her eyes shifting to the cupcakes as she replayed the memory of their first meeting. There was comfort in her eyes and the sight of it brought some to Abigail. She was afraid Bella was lost, yet here she was, standing as a survivor.

 _Just like me._

Unlike their first meeting, she accepted her cupcake with ease, taking bites between words. Abigail knew Bella wouldn't want to talk about whatever happened. She, like Abigail, wanted to move on. So, Abigail tried to move on. This entailed long stories about the happenings in the hospital, how she hated the girls in her support group, how much she missed Bella. She spoke as though Bella had been away willingly, and, as strange as it was, it felt nice to pretend. To have just a shred of normalcy.

Bella learned that Will had visited Abigail, that he attempted to "sub in" for her and failed to do so.

"He sucks at conversation," Abigail complained with a classic teenage roll of the eyes. "But he tried, so I guess that has to count for something."

Bella nodded, a pleased smile on her face. Between the two of them, Abigail did most of the talking. Not that she minded. She missed having someone to talk to, even if it was about trivial things like how she hated the new medicine they gave her for her nightmares. She said, "They make me feel like a zombie. I already got a taste of what it's like to die, I don't need it again."

"I don't take mine," Bella admitted without much guilt. "I should, but I don't."

"Freddie Lounds says I shouldn't, that it might bring some clarity or understanding to everything that happened," Abigail explained. It was the first time she mentioned the journalist.

"Then you definitely should," Bella adds, half jokingly.

"I will when you will," Abigail countered with, crossing her arms, a smirk playing on her face. It didn't phase Bella in the slightest.

"Nice try, Abby," Bella somewhat sarcastically commended. "But, it doesn't work like that." There was a lightness in her eyes, in her lungs. She was sure now that seeing Abigail in "her current state" was not a mistake.

"Why not?" Abigail asked, her face contorting with an obvious confusion.

"Because I'm an adult," Bella shrugs, smiling at the phrase she hated so much when she was younger.

"That's not fair!" Abigail argued, leaning forward, a healthy amount of anger and outrage in her eyes. Nothing too heavy or concerning. It was the kind of anger that Bella wanted. The kind that people would swallow out of worries that she would break under the pressure of it. It was the kind of anger that made her feel like herself, that nothing had changed, that nothing would change.

"Life's not fair, kiddo," Bella said, a smile betraying her serious tone. Abigail tried to keep her face stone-like, but it softened into a reflection of Bella's. In the end, she threw a wadded scarf at Bella and continued onto another topic.

Time passed and the two found themselves falling into their old routine, flipping through magazines - Abigail made sure to tell her what she missed in news, be it actual news or gossip - and daydreaming while lying on a blanket covered floor. She listened to Abigail as she painted a possible future. Going somewhere outside the U.S., where no one knew them, just living a quiet normal life, the one they were both denied. Bella was the one to tell Abigail that "it could happen." She told Abigail about how she saw her home in Wolf Trap, how she dreamed about it every night in "that place." Abigail asked if she had a place in that life.

Without any hesitance, Bella turned her head, her eyes, to Abigail, and she said, "Always." There were no tears in Abigail's eyes nor Bella's, yet there was that same heartbreaking fragility resting in them. A silent and pained plea for that to never change, for "always" to mean just that.

The words echoed in Abigail's mind after Bella left.

When that time came, she gave Abigail a promise to come back soon, giving her hand a squeeze. Abigail didn't let go at first. Even with her acting as though nothing had changed, it had. She was scared - _terrified_ \- that something would happen, that Bella would disappear as she had. Abigail knew it wasn't her fault. She didn't blame her. She was just scared of being alone again. She didn't want to let go, so she didn't. She held on tightly, a lost and scared look filling her blue eyes, drowning Bella with all her sorrows.

"I promise," Bella whispered, not pulling away. Instead, she turned back to Abigail, using her free hand to cover Abigail's, both of which clung to her other. She held on until her words sunk in, until Abigail believed her _._

 ** _Benny's Stop and Dine, Virginia_**

She dropped her bag on the table, the metal strap striking the surface should have drawn eyes. It didn't.

Nobody was there to notice her.

Gas prices were too high for people to overlook the state of the establishment.

She wasn't here for the gas, however. She was here for the food. She wanted one of those too greasy, too salty, too sloppily made burgers.

She thought about simply going behind the counter, making her own plate. If she left cash behind, she doubted anyone would have minded, but it wasn't her place. Not anymore. So, she settled into a chair and took in diner that she once hid in. The checkerboard tiles were still stained and cracked. The leather seats were still peeling, tearing, and fading. The paint on the walls were still chipping. The light up signs didn't work, but the jukebox did. Everything was almost the same. Everything other than her was the same. That was good, she decided after some time. Her old self may have had a simpler life, but a hallow one. Despite all the stress in the one that she was currently living, at least she was just that: living.

Her old self was living for the ghost of her brother.

Her current self was living for so much more. A family.

That was one of the reasons for her reason for coming back to this almost abandoned place. She needed to remember her last change to withstand this one.

And remember it, she did.

She sat in Will's old seat. It felt right to assume his place. A table separate from the counter, distanced from the back rooms that had an "Employees Only" sign. Less because she wasn't an employee, more because she was an outsider now. She was ever since she first truly stepped outside the dirty glass door and into the confusing and dangerous life that was Will Graham's. She didn't know it at the time - how could she? - that meeting him would set her on a path to becoming someone else.

He was a major event, a happening, a deciding circumstance in her history.

There was her brother. There was him. And now there was that woman and what she had done.

 _Well, what the fuck happens now?_

Bella didn't have the chance to dwell on the subject longer, her boss, a balding, tired looking, weary eyed man wandered out of his office, and with a gentle expression asked, "How may I help you?"

It didn't surprise her, the warmth that came with seeing him. Despite having barely a relationship, there was always an unspoken understanding, she supposed. He was the one who offered her a job, a place to hide with little explanation. She figured she might remind him of someone, be it himself or someone he once knew. Either way, whatever he saw in her granted her his favor and his protection.

She didn't need to understand back then.

She still didn't.

This was another comfort, just as Abigail was.

Whoever she might become is built on the person she once was.

 _Who I was, everyone I used to be, are all stacked upon each other, building and evolving._

She was given her burger just as a car, too shiny and new, pulled into the parking lot. He didn't park in front of the diner. He parked at a slight distance. The sole reason she could imagine why was to give her time, time to make a choice, time to decide how she was going to meet him. She should have watched him, prepare herself, but she couldn't. There was a sickness within. A nauseating feeling rising to the point where she couldn't bring herself to look at the food before her - not that it would have helped.

The bell on the door rang, and Hannibal was met with the sight of her, pale and pained.

Her eyes were closed, brows knitted together, lips likely bruising with how harshly she was biting them closed. One hand was gripping onto the table tightly, knuckles white. The other was bent. He couldn't see where it was placed, but he imagined it was on her stomach based on the disgusting slop gathered onto chipped plate that was set in front of her.

This place was deteriorating. If the outside wasn't telling enough, the inside was.

This was no place for her, he decided, looking down on her until she recovered.

When her eyes opened, he felt the disgust, the disappointment, the irritation in him vanish. Once again, he was reminded of the richness of life. Once again, he was met with a storm of emotions brewing within two brutally honest eyes.

He was reminded of how much he ached to see them.

He gave her the opportunity to speak first, and, in that moment, in her eyes he saw agony. So many words she wanted to say, to scream, but not a breath left her.

"I wanted to visit you at the hospital," he admitted, leaving out the part that the only one stopping him from doing so was himself. He wanted her starved of his presence. He wanted her to ache for him as he did in her absence.

"It's a good thing you didn't."

His brow rose as he took his seat and a smirk bloomed on her scarred face.

"I was terribly rude," she explained, not in the least bit apologetic. The corners of his lips twitched, almost daring to smile. That alone was a foreign feeling. It went against his principles to forgive her. Perhaps it was because he was not there to see it. Perhaps it was just something he was willing to overlook in order to continue to enjoy her company.

He watched her painfully try to choke down another bite. Her lips trembled, her shoulders pulled forward with a sharpness that was almost unnatural, the food - if one could call it that - threatening to rise up her throat. He watched the way her skin on her neck moved as she swallowed a second time. He watched the muscles pull tight like strings, playing to the tune of her own sickness.

Her name spoken caught her attention enough to stop her from taking another bite.

"Why did you choose this place?" He could have easily driven to Wolf Trap.

She set her burger down, settling into her seat, thinking. Minutes passed by in silence as though it were difficult to know the answer.

"I wanted you to see it."

Her words come out as a whisper, fragile despite the way she so harshly clenched her jaw.

"I wanted you to find me where he once did."

She wanted him to know the ugliness she came from. She wanted him to know that has changed before and that she is changing again. She wanted him to see it, to recognize it, to tell her, professionally, that there was no going back to this. She needed someone healthier than her. Healthier than Will.

Hannibal looked around the room again, letting everything sink in and carve its way into his memory.

"In hopes of what?"

"Closure?" she guessed with a bitterness in her voice. Her nose wrinkled, the corners of her eyes too as she felt the absence of the very thing she wanted. "I just. . . I don't know. I need you to know who I was before you met me. Isn't that something doctors need to know? Patient history." This was a part of her own. The place she settled after years of lost time spent looking for someone she might never find.

"Patient history is often medical."

"Everyone self medicates in different ways. This was mine."

The words hung in the air like some heavy but distant thing, and she turned her eyes away in slight regret.

Trying to set whatever baggage she carried aside, she looked again to him and found a comfort in his eyes. He spared no pity, no sympathy for her. It grounded her in the way seeing Abigail did, a brief moment in which she felt herself, or who she once was, again. Dust was settling, time was still, and she could breathe.

If only for a little while.

Her name was spoken again. This time she watched as the three syllables formed on his lips.

She wondered if he was purposefully saying it. They were the only ones present, after all.

 _Maybe he's reminding me that I'm an actual person._

It wouldn't be a surprise. She was robbed of a name in that room.

 _Maybe he just likes saying it_.

He leaned forward, reaching slowly, attentively, for her plate.

She did nothing. She'd been doing a lot of nothing lately.

Was it strange? She didn't know. Frustrating? Yes. Stuck in a room for what felt like an eternity, doing nothing, and what does she do when she is out? More nothing with brief activity. What she did do was never for herself. For Will. For Abigail. For Hannibal. . .

"Perhaps I can recommend a better form of 'self-medicating'?" he asked.

She squinted a bit, searching his eyes. There was always too much there to decipher.

"It's not exactly 'self-medicating' if your doctor tells you to," she pointed out. She meant it to sound humorous. It just came out bitter.

"Perhaps, but it is certainly healthier."

 _ **Hannibal Lecter's House, Baltimore, Maryland**_

Walking into his house for the first time since she got back felt how she imagined religious people did when they walked into a temple, church, synagogue, or mosque. It was a place of worship, but to what, she could never tell. To art? To Hannibal, himself?

Regardless, she felt enlightened. When searching for a way to spite or defy the rules she lived by in the white room, she thought the diner would be perfect. It was the mess that the woman would want to burn to the ground. It had the food that she would never be allowed to eat. Ugly, unhealthy, and so, so very imperfect. Destroying herself in a place of ruins seemed like the right thing to do in the spirit of reclamation.

But all of that was wrong. It felt wrong after she was welcomed into his home.

It was colorful. It was filled. It was everything she was robbed of, returned to her.

She didn't know how long she spent, just memorizing everything again; looking and touching everything she could.

Hannibal didn't seem to mind.

He allowed her "a day of rest" - despite most of her days being spent with little strain - before they begin. She spent over an hour in his private study, tracing the spines of books and skimming through some of the English ones, before she settled on one. When dinner was nearly done, he came for her. He found her, hunched over on a small couch, legs folded underneath her, book so carefully placed on the other seat. She looked as though she were touching something sacred, light touches, carefully turning each page.

She looked _starved_.

Lips parted, eyes focused, her heavy breathes.

"Take it with you."

He half expected some sort of snap, a primal jolt of alertness when his voice broke the silence. Instead, her eyes moved towards him, head turning not long after. Her spine slowly aligned, gently pulling herself upright. Her hands moved away from the book, folding themselves and resting on her lap. Her lips moved, an apology waiting to fall. It didn't. Instead, she shut them, swallowed the words, and nodded.

"Thank you."

He asked her if she would like to help him begin to set out dinner. She accepted, expecting him to direct her, to tell her how to do it in the way he likes - she expects him to have a _very_ specific method.

He didn't.

At least, he didn't direct her. He would offer advice here and there, but allowed her the comfort of doing things on her own. She knew how to set up. Her grandmother was rigorous in making sure everything was perfect. That woman was too. So, out of spite, Bella adjusted the silverware. A little crooked, a little uneven, a little more like home. When he noticed, when he did nothing, she didn't know whether to feel comforted or angry. Did he pity her?

She didn't ask.

He didn't answer.

When Hannibal served her, he, as he often did, he listed out what exactly was on her plate. The names did not make the different foods any more recognizable than they were before, but she didn't mind. It was more than a poached egg and half a grapefruit.

Eating was easier. There was no rush to choke down the bites, no urge to ruin herself out of spite. The food was too beautiful to waste on an unhealthy revenge. So, she ate slowly, savoring each bite, each taste. And it was something worth savoring. Had he been there when she was allowed her first meal outside of that room, had he brought her this, she might have cried.

She let him know. It's the best non-generic compliment she could think of.

He smiled. There was no sympathy in his eyes, for that she was thankful.

"Definitely healthier," she agreed, glancing up from her half empty plate.

There was a moment of silence, some thought stirring within his eyes. She didn't ask choosing to savor in the color, the richness.

"The first time I ate out of the hospital, I ate to the point where I couldn't keep much down," she admitted, remembering how Will spent a good hour holding her afterwards. He found her, hunched over, collapsed on the bathroom floor, just weeping in pain. It was insulting. She once thought she had a high pain tolerance, but that was stolen from her as well. Every emotion, every feeling, every sensation was overwhelming now. "I should have known better." She fasted before. Sometimes willing. Sometimes unwilling.

"Do you know better?"

She might have thought he was talking about after that night, but there was something in his voice, the lowness of it, the way the words slowly slipped out. She knew it was for now. For this meal. For this new method.

"I do."

"Would you be open to learning?"

It was a long stare down between the two of them, seconds ticking by as she thought of what she wanted, of what he was offering.

She had a taste of it once - showing up at his doorstep on a snowy night, asking for his help. He gave her that, and more. He gave her an opportunity to learn. Back then, she so hesitantly accepted, unsure of herself, of what more she wanted than Abigail's safety. What more could she have wanted back then?

What more could she want now, except for her sense of control back. . .

"Yes."

There was no raising of glasses, simply a silent, subtle, and shared celebratory drink.

The red ran down her throat, leaving her burning with a new sense of hope.

 ** _Grønne Haven,_** _ **Baltimore, Maryland**_

She stood alone in front of a crate of oranges, carefully lifting one to smell. Satisfied, she plucked three more from the crate, setting them into her half-filled basket. She paused, for a moment, to admire all the colors, all the components of what she held no doubt would be a masterpiece. It would mark the first that she willingly participated in.

Taking in the colors in a new light, she smiled bitterly.

 _And I almost didn't think about it._

Lifting her head, her eyes swept over the small market, settling on a single man standing before a shelf of spices. It was fairly easy to spot him. Dressed down, he was a sight to be seen and admired. She was quiet in her approach, not wanting to disturb him, but, still, his eyes politely found her. He stepped aside, allowing her to catch a glimpse of what she would one day have to search through if he had his way.

Her eyes scanned the labels. Half of them were in different languages - none of which she knew.

This was the first time he didn't have what he needed. Though, she supposed that wasn't a surprise.

"You know, when you said you needed a few things from the store, I imagined a supermarket."

He didn't laugh, but she did, rolling her eyes at her own stupidity - _of course he goes to fancy stores._ At the sound of her breathy laugh, his lips pulled into a humorous grin. Their eyes met. No thoughts shared, only a pleasant warmth.

That familiar sense of warmth pulled her back into memories that felt more like a distant dream.

 _Look at how far we have come, Hannibal,_ she thought. _How far will we go?_

"May I?"

She lifted the basket, presenting him with the various fruits and vegetables he sent her out to collect. He was just as gentle as she was but far more elegant in the way he examined its color - its smell. It was hard not to think him properly beautiful in the smallest movements - a delicate flare to the nostrils, the smooth rise and fall of a satisfied breath, the fine muscles of his lips pulling into a smile, the approval in his eyes.

"You look a little too proud of me just grabbing some oranges."

"More proud of your choice," he corrected.

There was something effortless in the way he peeled it, offering a single slice to her. There was something within the offer that felt familiar. That same sense of approaching a point of no return that she felt all that time ago when she first dined at his table. She dismissed the feeling, telling herself that there was nothing so purposeful, nothing so gravitating in it. Still, the feeling of accepting something she shouldn't lingered.

The first thing she noticed was the smell, richer now without the skin. Tangy. _Sweet_. The next was the taste. Taking a bite, teeth sinking into the slice, she felt a burst of flavor. Citrus, but so much so that it almost needed a new word. And, finally, the texture. Soft and seedless. It felt impossibly right. Perfection in something so small and oddly shaped.

It left her smiling, a small chuckle leaving her lips as she now realized how right he was to smile.

"Okay, I'll allow you some pride," she said.

"'Allow'?" Hannibal repeated, brows raised above eyes dancing with amusement.

"You cannot have everything everything you want," she points out, with a daring smile.

"Can't I?" he challenged, something devilish in the curl of his smile.

Her eyes and smile lingered for a moment too long, her own fondness for him bleeding through whatever defenses she once had.

"Was there ever a thing in your life that you wanted and couldn't have?" She meant to sound humorous, but the words left too quietly, too slow, too close.

"We all have moments in our lives that we regret," he answered.

It was then she realized the pain she carried was not hers alone.

"I cannot help but feel responsible for what happened to you."

She could tell there were words he left unsaid. It left her with a taste of frustration and shame.

"The only one responsible is her," Bella said quickly.

Hannibal expected her to be detached. He expected her to be wounded, grazing the scars the experience left her with. He expected her trauma to leave her as lost as she was before. Instead, of a raw pain of an open wound showing, he heard hatred bleeding in her voice. The words leaving her lips in heated breath, a rage building in once delicate browns.

There was a delicious violence in her.

Sweet. Bitter. _Divine_.

 _ **Behavioral Analysis Unit, Quantico, Virginia**_

She tried to maintain an air of professionalism around her.

She was there on official business and if Prurnell heard a whisper that she had even the slightest conflict of interest, she would be cast out and be forced to fight her way back up all over again. Her boss was as ruthless as they came; too cautious and tough to ever allow one of her own to act "outside the department's interest." The wellbeing of a former lover was not in the slightest of their interest. . . until now.

Bellamy Bennet's kidnapping was blood in the water for Kade Prurnell. While Alejandra was curious as to why Prurnell was hellbent on poisoning Jack Crawford's career, she was more concerned with finding Bella.

 _Bennet._ She had to remind herself to keep calling her "Bennet." It was easier that way, seeing her as someone else entirely.

She had been there when they brought her in.

She should have left earlier. She should have kept her distance. She should have set aside any personal feelings she had for someone she once knew.

Yet, she stayed.

She stayed and she saw.

Her hair was damp, hanging long and limp. Her face scrubbed clean. There was a dullness to her skin. Her cheeks now hollow. And her eyes - _her eyes_ \- were vacant as she stood alone, staring down the glass-walled hallway. She was lost. Lost in a memory or a dream and reality. And then, when her eyes found Alejandra, for a moment, she looked alive.

And it broke Alejandra's heart.

It all came back, for just a second, all the memories.

It was an overwhelming rush, too fast for her to comprehend. All she could understand was the warmth, the relief, the breath of air she had been holding for years finally letting go. She almost cried.

And then it was gone.

Will Graham had said her name - almost whispering it - and just like that Bella turned her head, and Alejandra was left.

Cold.

Alone.

Left behind.

She left then, fleeing to her hotel room, where she spent the night staring at the ceiling, following the jagged cracks in it. She tried not to dwell on what was long lost. Whatever future she might have had with Bella. She buried those hopes and dreams years ago. Even then, when a thought began to pull at her, trying to drag her back to the grief she long since let go of, she cut herself loose with five simple words.

 _Maybe in a better life_.

She repeated those words again as she watches Will Graham leave Jack Crawford's office.

She refused to feel jealous of this man. How could she after reading his file? Still, something rotten in her began to form when she looked at him. It wasn't angry. She doubted she could ever be angry at a man as unsteady as him. Afraid, yes. She sat in on one of his lectures, and the chilling description of a crime was enough to make her squirm. But angry? No. He hadn't done anything to deserve anger. He hadn't taken anything from her.

If anything, she should be grateful for what he had done, what he has been doing.

"You studied to be a botanist."

The words caught her off guard. Her eyes searched his - something he allowed her to do, no longer hiding behind the frames of his glasses - before she realized that he likely knew about her. She was torn between shock and embarrassment. She shouldn't have doubted their intimacy. They _lived_ together. She had a taste of that, but what little taste she had was that spent in the dark.

 _So you really have found someone who can reach you._

"Once," she corrected, as though he didn't already know.

He nodded.

She tilted her head, watching his expression change, a faint twitch of the brows, a slight struggle to grasp onto any words. She imagined this was as difficult for him as it was for her. Though, perhaps it would be less forced.

"It helped," he said. "It was her first case."

She reminded herself that Bennet had a job here before her abduction. "A man had been burying diabetics alive and plant fungi on top of them." She must have made a face because he was quick to switch focus. "Your - ah - mushrooms. She remembered them, stuff about them. It helped find him."

She would find out later, going through that specific file, that the cost of finding Eldon Stammets was being buried alive.

"Didn't think she'd remember something like that," she murmured, looking to the right, feeling as though she could just turn around walk into a memory she didn't know she carried. When she saw nothing but grey concrete and glass walls leading to the morgue and medical facilities, she was left with a hollow feeling in her chest.

Will cleared his throat, habitually averting his eyes when she turned her own back to him. She watched as he rummaged through his bag. She imagined it might be a file, that he was asked by Jack Crawford to deliver her one and decided to sooth her worries a bit. Instead, he held out to her a small envelope. In smooth, ornamental script was her name. She raised a brow, knowing full well that neither Will Graham nor Bellamy Bennet was capable of such elegant penmanship.

With a nod prompting her to open it, she broke the seal and procured an invitation.

"Dr. Hannibal Lecter requests the pleasure of your company for dinner."

Will shifted under her narrowed eyes.

"I don't know Dr. Lecter well enough to warrant an invitation."

"But you do know Bella."

Alejandra drew back, her spine aligning until it was as straight as she could ever be. She silenced the feelings that rushed at her - a skill she'd perfected over the years.

"She wants. . . She's sorry."

"It was years ago," she said quickly, swallowing her own anger - her misery. She didn't need Bella's apologies; Bella didn't need her forgiveness. She did not need to see Bella to know that she, too, had long since grew tired of grieving the loss possibilities.

"No. It's now."

It was his voice but Bella's words, and it left her aching.

 _ **Hannibal Lecter's House, Baltimore, Maryland**_

He allowed his true face to be seen when she looked at him. There is something in her eyes that he recognized, something bittersweet, something that took weeks to ripen. It was small but brightening look. Hope. Hope that he so carefully renewed and strengthened with each recipe learned, meal shared, and bite taken. It was only just for him to relish in the sight, in the knowledge that she cared and trusted him intimately?

He knew her almost as well as she knew herself.

He knew she could not sleep; Will could not sleep. The difference being when she did manage to find sleep, she did not wake up drenched in sweat, not knowing what was real and what was not.

He knew Will would stare at the ceiling; she would stare at the walls - walls Will painted a yellow, replacing the dull blues and greens that reflected the colors of the white room during the night.

He knew them as they knew each other.

And they knew him.

Not completely, but more than he ever felt known before.

"Hannibal."

The sound of his name stilled the knife in his hand. He could carry on. He often did in the company of others when he allowed them to join in his cooking. For him, though, Hannibal did stop and gently set the blade aside.

When his eyes find Will - all too easily - he found himself smiling.

Will cleaned up well.

It was a decently tailored suit - a brown woolen jacket with a charcoal colored dress shirt beneath. It was casual by design, but an improvement compared to his usual simple plaid button downs under jackets. And his hair, though dampened by the rain outside, appeared to be styled - a contrast to his usual messy curls. Even his aftershave smelled finer.

"I thought you were going to be late," he heard Bella say. He didn't have to see her to know she shared the same smile as him.

Will explained his "luck" - the recently found body of Nickolas Boyle arrived in the middle of their investigation into the human totem pole. Jack Crawford wanted his eyes on it - more importantly, he wanted Will's eyes to find Abigail - the last thing the three of them wanted, albeit for different reasons. Where his lips twitched, Bella's jaw clenched, and Will's eyes only grew wearier at the possibility of Jack bringing Abigail in.

Hannibal wondered what they - what _she_ \- would think of him threatening the girl. He did not regret it in the slightest. Her betrayal made made her an inconvenience, one he could not easily rid of. While he could not trust her, he could not kill her either. Abigail was too close to them, Bella especially. If she had not already accepted Abigail, if she had not so tightly tethered the girl to her own life, she would be more expendable.

But she was.

. . . For now.

Will rolled up the sleeves of his shirt, making his way over to their counter, eyes sweeping over an hours worth of food prep. He plucked the recipe card from in front of Bella. There was a time, once, when her eyes would have widened, lost without specific instructions. She might have quickly snatched the card back even - he was always delighted by how quick she could be. But now, she simply shook her head, smiling as Will butchered the name of the thick and decadent chocolate mousse. Her expression serene as she tipped a saucer of dark crimson into a pot of creamy white, delicately swirling the two with a wooden spoon.

"Sanguinaccio dolce."

The name rolls off her tongue with ease; the sound brought a smile to his face, one outshined by her own pride in it.

"Blood and chocolate," Will stated, finally looking to Hannibal again. There was not an ounce of surprise or revulsion on his face.

"And other things too," Bella added, dusting sugar and spices into the pot, powder floating through the air with each gentle tap. Will sets the recipe down, politely in the same place he found it, before moving to offer his hands to Hannibal.

They worked in a comfortable silence. It is not the same steadiness Hannibal was used to, but he found a love for it. Each movement slow, deliberate. Each motion moving him in a way he had long since forgotten.

They bring a pleasant warmth in his chest, one that only grows when they stay after diner and dessert - which they leave not a drop left.

 _"Are you sure you can't stay?"_ he remembered asking Will once.

Those words seemed so far away now as he watches them come undone before his eyes.

When the night is over and he lies in bed, the thought of them tasted of blood, chocolate, and wine.

An achingly beautiful combination.

* * *

 _ **God. I know I'm agonizingly late. If you're still reading this story, I adore you. This semester is over and I am taking one less class next semester so I will be updating more. I won't go over half a year before updating again.**_

* * *

 _ **Here's a casual preview of the next chapter:**_

 _ **Will Graham is having some ROUGH times.**_

 _ **Alejandra does some digging.**_

 _ **Murder?**_

 _ **. . . and an overall pick up in the pace of this story. We're about to hit the ground running!**_


	15. Chapter 15

**All rights to Hannibal (TV) belong to NBC.**

 **This chapter is dedicated to** **LisaxDeanshipper97. You wouldn't believe how much you help with my writing.**

 **Special thanks to** **Imperia Phantomhivefor,** **Sevotharte, CaptainMC, Anna.B, Dark-Enough-Conspiracy-Theory, LPWomer, acetwolf96, Codenameyikes, and anna5000 for** **your support!**

 **A few notes before I begin though. One, I changed the rating, so mind that. Two, sometimes things that don't make sense now will later.**

* * *

 _ **Hannibal Lecter's Office, Baltimore, Maryland**_

She came to his office searching for answers as to what was wrong with Will. Instead, she found herself in the midst of a brutal devastation. Bone crushing blows. Bloody and jagged wounds. Violent screams.

She saw Hannibal and a man. Bruised, battered, bloody. Neither one of them took notice of her. Not as Hannibal, who was, with a surprising grace, expertly avoiding the slashing of a letter opener. The man wielding it snarled - a mix of blood and spit leaving his mouth with the sound. Her heart pounded heavily within her chest, her feet planted firmly on the floor, watching in horror and fascination.

She didn't see Hannibal pick up a pen, but she did see the movement he used with it - tearing the man's forearm open from his hand to elbow. Her hands slapped over her mouth as the man cried out, dropping the heavy letter opener to the ground.

Hannibal's movements grew more furious. There was an unfamiliar look in his eyes - it should have terrified her - when he moved to finish the man off, thrusting the pen towards the man's throat.

When the man lands a sharp blow to Hannibal's throat, a scream ripped through hers.

The man's head snapped in her direction - a primal rage burning in his eyes - for only a second before he lunged at Hannibal, tackling him to the ground.

That is when he noticed her.

From the ground, holding onto consciousness, his eyes found hers.

And she knew.

A cord snapped in her chest, and she moved.

Hannibal felt a swell of pride, distracting him. Tobias struck him three times in the face. The skin on his right cheekbone tore open.

The pain was distracting but not exhausting, yet he feigns a need for recovery, watching their movements - _her_ movements.

She was unpracticed. There was little technique to the way she fought; it was apparent by how easily Tobias deflected her blows. He did not fault her for her brutish and frantic style. Rather, he was pleased by the fury of it all.

She was quick - he forgot how fast she could be - and despite Tobias' experience, she did land a blow. A bruised fist collided with Tobias' chin. Another followed, striking him on the right of his face, sending him back a few steps. Tobias took less than two seconds to recover, diving down, swiping up the letter opener.

Hannibal thought to intervene then, hearing Tobias slash at her - metal cutting through the air.

There was a flash of fear on her face as she tried to avoid the blade. She was near stumbling as she drew closer to the a wall. Her lips pulled back in a wild rage, a roar ripping through her throat as she caught Tobias by the arm holding the letter opener. She pulled him forward, twisting her upper body, using her elbow, hitting him in the head a third time.

The corner of Hannibal's lips twitched.

Tobias' hunched over. In that second, Bella made the mistake of hesitating, and before she could deliver another blow, Tobias swung his arm back out.

Hannibal heard him slice her cheek open before he heard her cry out and fall against a console table. She snatched a book sitting on the table and swung it in front of herself in time to block the letter opener. Realizing it was lodged inside the book, she yanked it aside, driving a fist into his chest.

Tobias grunted, taking only one step away. He grasped onto her should and shoved her into the wall with a loud _thud_. Not allowing her a breath, he grabbed her by the arm and shoulder, turning and throwing her.

She cried out after hitting the ground, her eyes screwed tight, face twisting with pain.

As Tobias grabbed her by the hair and neck, pulling her up, and drove his knee into her abdomen, he thought to intervene.

Her sounds turned to more towards pain than rage, but she still fought.

In between the punching and the kicking and breaking his other a glass table, Tobias managed to get his hands around her throat, shoving her back against Hannibal's desk.

She howled in pain.

Tobias' hold on her neck tightened, silencing her. She clawed at his face, but Tobias didn't let go. Her hands slow until they drop, weakly pulling at his.

That was when Hannibal intervened.

When Hannibal wraps the crook of his arm around his throat, only then does Tobias let go. As he struggles, Hannibal's eyes remain on Bella. She slid off the desk, crumbling to the ground, gasping for breath.

It was the only assurance Hannibal needed.

Before he could kill Tobias, the man kicked off the ground, forcing them both back. Hannibal's hold loosened. Tobias broke free and began again.

Despite Tobias' growing exhaustion, he landed a few more blows - twice to Hannibal's face.

He tasted blood as he fell back against his ladder, staring down at Tobias, who only grinned.

Hannibal regretted not snapping his neck while he had the chance.

His heart was beating too heavily to hear the drumming of a heavy booted run, but he heard her scream - a battle cry if he's ever heard one.

Unfortunately, Tobias also heard it and took Hannibal's moment of recovery to stop her.

Using her momentum, he caught her by the shoulders and threw her. She hit the bookshelves with a sickening crack, falling to the cold floor, books and two shelves raining down on top of her.

Hannibal hadn't a second to worry for her. Tobias snarling and swinging at him. Hannibal swiftly moved out of the way and behind the ladder, catching his arm on the other side, pulling back until he heard the bones crunching.

Tobias screamed.

Hannibal might have felt satisfied if he were not ready for to be done with it.

With one arm, Tobias swung at him. With his front open, Hannibal struck him in the throat. Tobias fell to his knees, hunching over, coughing, a hand at the newly damaged area.

He was not getting up.

Satisfied, Hannibal's eyes moved to Bella, who was shaking on her hands and knees, trying to get up.

Hannibal, despite his own exhaustion, moved to help her stand, steadying her.

When he looked at her face, he was not assessing the damage done to it, rather, admiring it. It was a mess of blood, bruises, and scars. She would have been a pitiful sight to bare if he had not seen her fight through the bulk of it.

She would have been hideous if not for how she looked at him, how she clung to him by the lapels of his jacket.

Another moment to savor, to memorize, to tuck away in his memory palace.

She was a wild thing.

He knew this when she looked at Tobias, the man who tried to kill him and her - though Hannibal doubted it was the latter that caused the contempt in her eyes. Hannibal, turned his eyes to a heavy metal stag statue sitting on a nearby pedestal, only looking back to her when her eyes followed.

A silent question hung in the air.

She answered by letting her fingers uncurl from his jacket, her hand sliding to his pocket, and in one movement, pulling free his pocket-square and offering it to him

He almost smiled.

He retrieved the statue, walking towards Tobias.

Raising the statue high, he spared her one last glance. Seeing her expression, giving her one last chance to possibly change what what was to become of the man. She only stared back at him, something unreadable in her eyes - yet not an ounce of objection.

Hannibal turned his head back to Tobias, and in a swift violent swing, he brought the statue down, hearing Tobias' skull crack.

Tiredly, he lets the statue fall from his hands.

Something heavier hit the ground soon after.

Turning his eyes towards the sound, he found Bella, standing over a now knocked over pedestal.

Her eyes met his.

And he knew.

 _ **Mercy Medical, Baltimore, Maryland**_

Despite everything, Will looked the worst out of them all.

His expression was of near devastation and sheer relief at the sight of them bloodied but alive.

Hannibal watched as Will drew in a deep breath and held it for a few moments before moving to Bella.

Hannibal watched as the rest of the world faded away for Will Graham.

He only saw her.

Hannibal might have felt a twinge of jealousy if not for the way he looked at her - the way he touched her.

He, with a shaking hand, gently cupping her face with one hand - the other wounded from what Hannibal assumed to be Tobias' work - his thumb tracing below the wound closure strips on her left cheek. Her doey eyes fell closed and her features twisted in a mix of comfort and pain. She melted into his touch.

In all of his years being satisfied with his own solitude, Hannibal was struck with an immense longing.

He needed no comfort, yet he still craved it.

The sound of familiar heavy footsteps drew him from the sight. Jack Crawford was never one to be particularly sensitive to others, especially Will, but he gave them a few moments. Hannibal suspected this gift was courtesy of Jack's own guilt for the third time she was injured by a killer he chased. So, Jack turned his attention to Hannibal. His eyes were narrowed, the slightest bit of suspicion swimming in them.

"How does Tobias Budge, who killed two Baltimore police officers, find himself in your office only to be overcome by a doctor and a..." Jack spared Bella a look of regret and confusion. "-a woman like her."

Hannibal, too, spared her a look, drinking in the sight of her once more.

Jack knew nothing about what Bella was actually like. He saw only the aftermath. The woman with skin in bloom of bruises and dried blood. A woman so fragile in the arms of an even more fragile man. He knew nothing of how she fought. He knew nothing of what she became when _he_ was in danger - her rage was a result of his own importance to her left a pleasant taste on his tongue. Jack did not see how merciless she could be. Jack saw nothing of what she became in those moments.

It took Hannibal one glance into Will's eyes to realize that he did not either.

Hannibal was the sole witness to what she became.

His lips twitched, fighting off the devilish grin that came with such a delicious fruit of knowledge.

"He came to kill my patient," Hannibal stated, his eyes purposefully looking distant - a touch forlorn.

He held little doubt that Jack already knew this. Tobias was not the only one who left his office in a body bag.

"I caught him off guard."

Jack and Hannibal's eyes turned to Bella, who separated herself from Will.

"How did you come to be there? Like you said, you caught him off guard. Hannibal was in the middle of an appointment," Jack pointed out.

Hannibal fought the urge to sneer. He did not need to show his disgust.

Will displayed enough for the both of them.

"Are you - is this an interrogation?" Will asked, his voice raising, outrage seeping into his words.

"I'm only asking a question, Will," Jack replied, never moving his eyes from her. Bella blinked a few times, turning her eyes away as if in shame. Jack's shoulder drew back, strength found in what he assumed to be a fault in the narrative they told. "Ms. Bennet, why were you at Hannibal Lecter's office?"

Slow seconds ticked by before she answered.

"I was worried..."

"About Dr. Lect-"

"...about you, Will," she cut Jack off with.

Will's head snapped back to her, confusion riddled across his features.

" _You've been getting worse._ "

Hannibal felt a string in his chest pull. A touch of guilt at being responsible for her own near devastation.

 _It has to be done._

There was no beautiful becoming without pain, and theirs would be made of suffering.

 _It has to be this way_.

"...been sleepwalking more. You lose time! I've tried to work around it and- Will, what was I supposed to do? Just let you keep getting worse?"

They continue in hushed tones, an argument they would have had and resolved in their own little bubble brought before others.

Jack hadn't the decency to appreciate it.

"...I'm... I'm managing it," Will said finally.

He meant to comfort her, to console her worried and tender heart, yet there was only a look of disappointment in her eyes.

She shook her head slowly, tabling the argument for a later time before looking back to Jack.

"I was _worried_. He's getting worse, so I went to the only person who I know genuinely cares for him."

The word "only" struck Jack hard. His lips parted and snapped shut, swallowing what little offense he could rightfully carry. Even he, to some extent, knew his relationship to Will Graham was not in the latter's best interest. The only one who would push Will farther than Hannibal himself was Jack.

"I still don't understand how Tobias Budge came to your office."

This time Will supplied the answer, explaining how Franklyn suspected Tobias to be the one responsible for the murder at the symphony. Hannibal filled in the rest, describing how Tobias was the one who broke Franklyn's neck; how Tobias attacked him; how Bella arrived and distracted Tobias from murdering him; how they both nearly died and, by a stroke of luck, managed to stop him. He spun a convincing tale, one that ended with an apologetic and shameful averting of the eyes.

Will stared after the man, a glare hardening his worn face.

It wasn't until after Jack was out of sight that his resolve crumbled.

Burying his face in his hands, he let out a heavy sigh before turning guilty eyes to Hannibal.

"I got you involved."

False. Hannibal was the one who mentioned Franklyn's suspicions. Hannibal was the one who walked into Tobias' shop and baited him. Hannibal was the one to invite him to dinner.

"I would prefer to view what happened as inevitable," Hannibal offered with a small and humorous smile. Will gave a broken one in return.

In truth, there was no joke, no humor, just him taking solace in the fact that they were all still alive and well.

Will almost died today too, and the thought did leave a bitterness in Hannibal's chest, one that was lessening with each passing moment.

"I feel I've dragged you both into my world."

Will plucked a piece of gauze off a small cart by Hannibal's bedside. He moved towards Hannibal, not hesitating once before gently dabbing Hannibal's forehead.

"I got here on my own." Hannibal closed his eyes, savoring the almost-vulnerable feeling of being cared for. "But I appreciate the company"

He heard a breathy laugh.

He did not have to look at Will to know he was smiling.

"Personally, I could do without being thrown into a shelf, but its not so bad," he heard Bella joke. He opened a single eye to find her rolling her head back, a few pops sounding off. He wondered then what she might have done if she arrived before. What would she do if she saw him snap Franklyn's neck? She walked away from murder and almost being murdered easier than he would have originally thought. He knew it was not the worse she endured, yet, he still held some doubt of her allowing him to do what he had. What she knew nothing of.

"Not so bad," Will echoed incredulously. "You're making a habit of almost dying at the hands of serial killers. You're becoming familiarized with violence."

She lifted her split lips into a bittersweet smile.

"You say that as if I haven't already known violence."

When Hannibal looked to Will, he could see in the way Will parted his lips that he wanted to say more but held back.

And so, her words hung in the air.

Eventually a nurse came, a young man with blond hair and bright green eyes, happily chirping at how lucky they were that the damage was not worse, that their recovery would be quick but not entirely painless ("Although we'll try to reduce whatever pain there is the best we can," he added encouragingly). He quickly ran through advice on what to do and what not to do. He emphasizes the need for rest.

When they were finally allowed to leave and go their separate ways, Hannibal felt a small hand catch his wrist.

He turned to see Bella, looking up to him with a regretful grin.

"I guess we'll have to cancel that dinner party." He almost mirrored her regret before she continued. "Maybe one with just the three of us."

It would be rude to cancel so suddenly, but he (quite satisfied with this change) supposed they had a valid excuse.

"Maybe Abigail too."

She did not see his satisfaction fall.

 _ **Behavioral Analysis Unit, Quantico, Virginia**_

When she asked Will Graham about his recent absence, his answer sent her reeling.

Every time she thought she was starting to bury her past, it came clawing back to the surface.

But, she allowed it this time. She allowed her former love and care for Bellamy Bennet to return, if only whilst she read through the report.

It was hardly the most violent of scenes, yet, the thought of Bellamy, even as she knew her now - and she barely did - surviving an attack from a man, who bound and gagged a man to a chair before slicing and removing his trachea to insert the neck of a violin, left Alejandra sick with guilt.

In the days since she received her dinner invitation, she had been caught between respecting and resenting Bellamy Bennet. Respect, in that she was demonstrating growth, inviting her to a social gathering - something the old Bella would rather avoid at all costs - to make amends for the wrongs they'd done to each other. Resentment for partially wanting to avoid the woman all together. Alejandra still blamed Bella for the hurt she caused by leaving, but she also accepted the blame for pushing her away to begin with.

It took a shameful amount of courage to decide to go, and an even more shameful amount of indignation at the dinner's cancellation.

And then she found out.

And she couldn't stop thinking about it.

Ever since she first found her - and she was still not over the fact that she _found_ her. Of all places, with the FBI? - she had been feeling haunted. Haunted by the past; haunted by dreams of other lives that weren't as cruel as this one. And this one, she found, was by far one of the cruelest. At least to Bella, Alejandra decided as she tried to pretend to reread over the last of the reports for Kade Prurnell as she walked through to the morgue. Once, years ago, she wondered if Bella was chased by tragedy or running straight towards it.

She still didn't know the answer.

She did, however, know her response then, and she felt an echo of it now.

Even now, if she could, she wanted to spare this stranger of her suffering.

But it wasn't her place now - not that it ever truly was.

When that simple fact sunk in, it almost felt easier to breathe.

She closed her eyes for only a moment, drawing in a slow and steady breath.

And then she was hit with a sharp pain to the forehead.

Her report fell to the ground with the sound of papers sliding and pens clattering on the cold floor. One hand flew immediately to her forehead. The other flew out in front of her, grasping onto the shoulder of who ran into her, steadying her self.

The sound of a laugh is what pauses her irritation and urge to snap.

When she looked, she found herself looking at a woman. Dark brown curls, light and soft looking skin, even softer pale pink lips, and profoundly blue eyes that stared back with an apology that tumbled from her lips only seconds later. It took Alejandra a good half-minute before giving her a, "No. I'm sorry. I should be paying more attention."

"Well, trust me, I wasn't paying attention either," the woman said, her lips falling easily into a look of disgust.

Alejandra raised a brow, watching as the woman gathered her thoughts, censoring them.

"A really bad plan is going to be executed." To this, Alejandra's brows furrowed. She truly didn't need an answer, but she would bite, if only to take her mind off of everything. "Jack Crawford might be placing my patient in danger based on a hunch."

 _Prurnell will want to hear of this... Fuck._

"How much danger are we talking about?" Alejandra asked as she knelt down, gathering her things. She half expected the woman to as well. When she didn't, Alejandra stole a glance and found the woman looking down on her with narrowed eyes.

"Irreparable."

The answer was pronounced, distant. Suspicious. Quickly snatching the last bits of paper, Alejandra rose, standing tall now. Whatever softness she might have developed was gone with the woman's anger towards Jack Crawford. All of it dissolved into a defensive loyalty. How the man managed to incite such a feeling within his colleagues and associates, Alejandra didn't know.

"I didn't catch you name," Alejandra mused, tilting her head in a convincing-to-the-outsider confusion. She checked the badge on the woman's right breast. VISITOR, it read.

"Alana Bloom," the woman answered hesitantly.

"And how is Crawford placing your patient in danger, more specifically?"

She can see the woman, Bloom, consider answering honestly. Alejandra can all but see the scales of benefits and consequences tilting back and forth. On one hand, Alejandra could be asking out of concern for her patient. The other, Jack Crawford could find himself in trouble. The second was inevitable, not that the woman would know. Though, Alejandra supposed that it should be a given. When a well known person will find plenty the enemy. And Kade Prurnell was one nasty enemy.

In another life she might have found herself with the same amount of loyalty and respect for Jack Crawford as those who worked with and for him.

Not this one.

"A boy," Bloom began carefully, watching for anything insincere in Alejandra's eyes. "The brother of a murder victim confronted my patient, accusing her of being involved in his sister's death. His body was found recently and Jack thinks my patient might be responsible."

Alejandra blinked, waiting for more details.

Bloom gave none.

With a quiet but heavy sigh, Alejandra reached into her back pocket for her phone.

"I could put in a request for a second psychiatrist to evaluate her. If you're truly concerned-"

"He already received his second opinion."

Bloom's voice was flat, riddled with frustration - this time with someone other than Jack Crawford.

"Oh?"

Bloom's eyes softened, a fondness that she could not deny filling into her cold blues.

"Might I ask who?" In truth, she didn't need a name from Alana Bloom. She could ask Crawford. He would hate her for it, rightfully suspecting that she might have caught onto something to send to Prurnell. From Bloom, it would be easier. It left her little room to be the messenger in threat of being killed. Prurnell would be happy and Crawford would have someone else to blame if trouble came knocking on his door.

"Dr. Hannibal Lecter." Bloom recognized the flash of recognition in her eyes, her own narrowing with a polite curiosity. "You know him?"

"Not personally," Alejandra breathed. In truth, her heart and mind lurched forward at the name - a name that kept popping up in the strangest of places. Will Graham's doctor. Bella's friend and likely hero. And now, a consultant. She made a note to look into him later as a strange stirring began in her chest. "I was invited to dinner."

"You didn't go?" Bloom asked, as if the idea of her declining was outlandish.

"It was cancelled," Alejandra corrected with a wry smile. Bloom's lips parted, her eyes far away for a moment. "I assume you know why."

Bloom nodded silently. The ashen look upon her face was telling enough to how she felt towards the doctor: strongly.

"How's he holding up?"

That was when Alejandra saw a spark of - of what she couldn't tell. _Unease? Uncertainty?_

"I can't imagine it is easy," Alejandra wondered, purposefully sounding sympathetic. In truth, she held no feelings for the man. She would blame her own nature for that, but, in truth, she held unfounded suspicions. She never seemed short of those feelings since she found Bella. Perhaps that was where her suspicions stemmed from. _You left me with so many questions, and I've so many more since finding you._

"It's not his fault," Bloom quickly responded, her shoulders rising, prepared to defend the man. Alejandra reminded herself that he killed a man. "It was self defense. He was protecting himself - and someone else." The way Bloom tacked on his saving Bella caused Alejandra's brows to twitch. "He was dragged into-into all this." With the way she said it and surveyed her surroundings with a look of - distaste? - Alejandra would assume he did not often find himself in trouble often.

"By who?"

Alana Bloom's gaze was cloudy with the question she so clearly was asking herself. It was a comfort to know that Alejandra was not the only one trying to sort her way through a tangled mess that was not hers.

"I want to say Jack," Bloom admitted. Her manicured hands that were so tightly fisted unravelled. "But... But it was me." Her shoulders dropped, caving in with the weight of her own truth. Whatever strength she carried vanished; Alejandra's returning as she caught onto a scent. Of what, she did not know. _A gut feeling_ , she told herself. "I was the one who recommended he evaluate Will Graham. He's a-"

"I know Mr. Graham," Alejandra interrupted. Bloom spied a look of reservation crossing the other woman's face. "Is that how he met Ms. Bennet?" She was not asking for Prurnell. She was asking for herself, and she knew it based on how hot her breath was, how she had to slow her words and not appear deeply concerned.

"He evaluated them both."

 _And they have dinner._

"He's their doctor?"

Bloom could see the confusion written across Alejandra face. A look of understanding came across hers.

"It's not conventional," Bloom began, a wry smile working its way onto her pink lips. "But after everything they've been through, its hard to stay in lines with the typical standards."

Alejandra nodded, trying to look accepting as she took in the doctor's words. She'd only known of what happened with Eldon Stammets, Irene Matlin, and, now, Tobias Budge. One near death by a serial killer was enough, but three? The possibility of there being more caused her stomach to knot. She tried to rationalize with herself, telling herself that any of that wasn't a surprise in their line of work.

But it was.

She could feel it in the way her heart drummed to a different beat, in the way the hairs of her body prickled at this all.

Something was wrong in all of it.

"Of course." A wavering smile on her face, Alejandra nodded at Bloom. "Anyways, I have to go," she excused herself with, motioning towards the morgue.

Bloom gave her a polite smile, much better than Alejandra's own.

"I...I'll see you around, Dr. Bloom."

The smile on her lips faded into a smooth indifference as she circled into the morgue, finding a swarm of crime scene investigators. The morgue has never been busier or exhausted. There are long window sized photos of a grotesque human totem pole, boards of names and details, arrows pointed, circles drawn. At the center of it all was Price, Zeller, and Katz.

When they notice her, they still, staring at her.

"How many?" she asks, moving towards the wall.

"It's hard to say right now," Katz answered.

Alejandra nodded, a sickening feeling returning to her. In her distraction, Price moved to the drawers, opening and sliding one open. The sound caught Alejandra's attention, and she looked. Her stomach dropped.

"Our drawer of heads would say fifteen - but we got a whole one and one on the table, so seventeen," Price said casually enough for bile to rise in her throat.

"Drawer of heads," she echoed, brows furrowed but eyes wide.

Price nodded.

"We're calling it 'Satan's Jigsaw Puzzle," Zeller piped.*

"We're starting with the heads and are working our way from there," Katz explained, holding her hands apart and bringing them closer in a "working inwards" gesture.

Alejandra nodded again slowly before beginning to shake her head.

"The heads are the corners," Price added, as though that would help.

"That's a lot of corners."

"That's what I said!" Katz began before beginning "renaming" negotiations.

Whatever else followed was muffled by Alejandra's own thoughts.

The totem pole murders were surprisingly the least confusing of her visit when compared to Bellamy Bennet, Will Graham, and the strange but present Hannibal Lecter.

 _ **Will Graham's House, Wolftrap, Virginia**_

Her recovery was physically slow and agonizing. Her refusal to take any of her pain medicine was becoming more and more apparent. Especially at night. Each night they spent together was interrupted by pain. He would find himself awake on the edge of her bed, the sounds of her groaning as she tried to sit up. She made a habit of touching him. Fingers curled into his shirt, an arm draped over his chest, sometimes tangling her legs with his. She found her ways to be aware of his sleepwalking - her body as her own alarm to wake her when he did.

She used to be able to guide him back to safety, and he would wake up the next morning none the wiser about his walks.

Now, he knew. He knew why she was so worried for him.

The night before, he woke to the sound of her falling. He managed to get out of bed - her fingers slipping from his shirt. He was walking towards the door when she fully woke. She rushed to get up, and in doing so tripped. She turned in her fall, her bruised back hitting the ground first, her head striking the wooden floor with a harsh crack.

He apologized. Endlessly.

Each time, she told him that it wasn't his fault. Each time she tried to assure him, he was more sure in the opposite.

He was never more sure than when he heard her swear the next morning during her bath.

He knocked on the door to the bathroom, his heart beating heavily - guiltily - with every passing second of silence. Her back was bleeding again. He was silent, not knowing what to say. Thankfully, she was the one to break the silence with the sound of splashing water. Then, he heard her speak in a hesitant voice, asking if he would help her.

He was surprised at how easy it was to do so.

He once imagined that to see her naked - or near naked - would make him nervous. It didn't. It felt almost entirely natural to see her. Her arms crossed over her chest, habitually hunching over out of more pain than emotional discomfort. She bared her back to him, and he saw everything.

He saw the angry breaks in her skin, the dark ranges of colors spreading from them. The darkest were at her lower and upper back, where she'd been crushed onto Hannibal's desk and thrown into his shelf. What drew his eyes the most when gently washing her back was old raised scars among the new. They were catches of silver among the blue and green toned skin. Almost a pattern in how intricate they looked. He was distracted, tracing over them with a finger that he almost didn't realize how painful they must have been.

Almost distracted that he almost spoke the question they brought.

He never spoke.

Yet, she answered all the same.

"They're the prettiest ones I have." She looked over her shoulder, watching his face closely as she drew her legs close, resting her chin on her knee, giving him a better look at her scars. "They're the only ones I wanted." He swallowed, thoroughly caught off guard. "Constellations," she murmured, turning her head forwards, somehow looking into the past. "My brother was obsessed with the stars. He knew and loved them in a way I could never understand. I always wanted to, of course. These were a way to be closer - or, at least, feel closer."

"Would a tattoo not be easier?" he asked as he began to clean the part of her back that needed to be tended to. His words came out almost convincingly casual, but she heard his real question: _Would it not be less pain?_

"That's not me."

Will didn't know what to say to that. He never had a chance to love someone as she so clearly loved her brother. She would drown in pain if it meant holding onto him. She carried enough of it to last a lifetime. As much as it would and did fade, as much as she could put it behind her, she carried it always.

So he carried on, trying hopelessly to make it easier for her.

And she let him.

And she loved him for it.

At night, while drawing circles around Andromeda, he thought back to the woman he found in a diner off of Interstate 95. The woman with a skeleton of an apartment. The woman who could pack her life away in a box or a luggage bag. The woman who held onto nothing that wasn't a part of herself. He thought back to her and stared at the woman in front of him. This woman who had a very filled home. This woman who leaned into the touch of another rather than shy away from it. This woman who had people to hold onto that were more than just a memory.

He thought of them and pressed his lips to her left shoulder-blade where Andromeda rested.

She shifted as a sigh - light yet heavy - left her.

She looked over that same shoulder, gazing back at him with her dark eyes. She recognized the words in his eyes, and something foreign and familiar came flooding into hers.

She pulled herself upright, the covers with her. In light streaming in from the windows, he could make out her shape. Her shoulders. Her chin. The curve of her spine shifting with each breath. She turned. A leg over his, a hand over his heart. Her eyes stared into his and she understood. Parted lips slowly closing, fingers curling to fist his shirt, she murmered a single word.

 _"You."_

She pressed her lips to his.

He felt feverish.

She was the one pulling up his shirt. He propped himself up, lifting each arm obediently, distracted by the way she so furiously placed her lips on him as it happened. His stomach. His chest. His neck. His lips. He thought to ask her if this - if intimacy now of all times - was what she wanted, but the second her fingers curl over the hem of his shorts the only thing leaving his lips was a heated breath. Words leave hers, and though he cannot make out what they all were, they sound certain.

She peeled off what little she had on. He thought he heard her mumble something about fairness as she did before losing them to the sheets.

He felt almost selfishly warm at seeing her, especially when her face caught the light.

Rosy cheeked, furrowed brow.

She reached for him and found him hard - he almost felt like a fumbling teenager again, trying to find his way. This time when a light breath left her lips, it sounded like a laugh. He blinked a few times and found the corners of her lips lifting ever the slightly before his name left them. The sound was selfishly sweet on his ears - selfishly for him or her, he did not know. All he knew was that he never felt as sweet a relief as when her lips pressed against his forehead.

"You," she said again.

The word sounded like a prayer.

He was invigorated.

He placed his mouth on one of her breasts, trying desperately to give her what she gave him. A tremor ran through her. Whether it was a laugh or a broken gasp, or a bit of both - again, he did not know. He only savored the way she rested her hands on his shoulders, nails biting into his skin.

He ran his hands over her and she let him. Down her spine - minding its tenderness - over her breasts, her thighs, her shoulders. He found Orion easier than he would have ever in the sky.

She tasted him slowly at first. Her softened lips against his chapped ones before she ventured further. She kissed her way from his lips and over his jaw and downwards. His whole body convulsed when he felt her tongue at the crook of his neck.

He felt her teeth when he nearly lost himself - just grazing against his skin, a small bite.

She guided him.

It passed by hard and fast and again.

She clung to him as much as he did her.

He felt hot tears on his shoulder and she felt him shudder.

They fell apart, twisted and tied to each other.

Her leg over his, his arm around her, her head tucked below his chin.

A single word left his lips, and he knew.

 _"You."_

 _ **Hannibal Lecter's House, Baltimore, Maryland**_

He watches her hands as they moved in slow, methodical motions, drying each dish with the attentiveness one would give to a sacramental. He has seen those hands do many beautiful things. Preparing a liver. Flipping through the pages of _Faust, Part One_. Pulling free a piece of cloth that would give him deniability. She used those hands to hold a knife and fork an hour ago to cut into the heart of a young man that interrupted one of their grocery shopping trips. The man who asked her if she would take a picture with him - he even apologized at first, saying, "You're one of the dolls right? Bellamy Bennet? I'm sorry, but can I take a picture with you?" She politely and uncomfortably declined. Not a word reached the man who carried on, prattling on about how "inspiring" she was to have "survived that crazy bitch." He moved close to her and snapped a quick picture. He gave a tasteless "you look so pretty in person" before trying to make off with the picture.

He would rather her cut the man open herself, but she was not ready. A heart would have to do.

"Staring is rude." His eyes find her smiling lips, amusement not quite reaching her eyes. "Though, I suppose I'm just as guilty."

He noticed the lack of guilt in her voice - the lack of guilt in general.

He wonders if taking a life - if participating in taking a life - weighs as heavily on her as Will. He easily recalled how the man burst into his office the night before, carrying an overwhelming amount of disappointment and rage, announcing that Abigail Hobbs killed Nicholas Boyle. He remembered how he confessed to knowing, to talking down Will from revealing the girl. He remembered how he understood in that moment how desperately Will wanted Abigail to be innocent in her father's crimes.

If Abigail was innocent and could walk away from the ugliness of her past, so could Will. But she couldn't. She unearthed her past, knowing it might mean burying him in the process. That enough he knew by the way she dug up Nicholas Boyle's body.

He should be thankful, however. She was at least partially responsible for driving the both of them to him.

"You are forgiven," he assured.

"I'm not looking for forgiveness."

"But you are looking."

She blinked her eyes slowly, as though regarding him, before relenting. "I am," she relented. Her eyes moved back to the dishes, denying him of the quickest way to her thoughts and the pleasure of her full attention. He denied her as well, moving to pour them another glass of wine; his back to her.

They work in silence until she began again. She knew he would not ask a second time.

"Will is sleepwalking," she began. He heard her set the dish down. He heard the sound of her shoes against his tiled floor as she turned. He did as well, only with a drink in hand. She took it with enough gratitude in her eyes to be forgiven. They drink to an unspoken truce. No more denying - for now. "He's slipping."

 _Fading._ That was the word he used the last time he and Hannibal had an official meeting.

"I try to stop him - to help him." It was out of her control. He pitied her knowing full well that Will's worsening condition was by his hand. "It's not enough."

He could see guilt eating away at her in the way it ate at Will, who was not only trying to hide his growing encephalitis (not that he even knew it) but for keeping Abigail a "secret." "She loves Abigail... And Abigail loves her. I can't take that away from them," Will decided, not realizing that it would be near impossible to do anyways. If there was one thing Hannibal was certain of, it was her willingness to kill or die for the ones she cared immensely for.

He was proud to be one of those very people.

"Do you worry that you are not enough?" She would never be. Her hands could create and destroy beautiful and dangerous things, but not even they could save him from that.

"No. I'm not blind," she easily disputed. She never thought herself to be enough for anyone. She never wanted to be. "I worry he will not care to find out if anything will be enough. He's not even considered going to a doctor."

Hannibal raised a brow.

"A non-psychiatrist," she clarified, not rolling her eyes but her stare felt as though she might as well have. "He's getting worse and-and I need him to not... I need him," she admitted, setting her drink aside.

She looked to him as she did when she arrived on his doorstep on that snowy night.

"Can you help him? Just get him to seek other help."

She looked at him as though he were the god to bring Will deliverance from his breaking reality. It brought an aching regret to his heart. She could not see it yet. His breaking was his deliverance.

He could not answer her in the way she wanted, but he could give her what she asked.

"I can."

The look of blessed relief washed over her features. Her eyes, gazing up at him with a bright gratitude, a hand loosely holding a knife, the other resting against the cutting board. He could memorize the slight curve of her parted lips, the tension of them when she drew in a breath to speak, the way they relaxed when nothing but a breath passed between them. Hannibal was struck by the contrast to the woman he first met. The one with downcast eyes full of longing, hiding within herself, a frightened femininity. He found pleasure in the sight. Eyes awake, facing forward not turning her head away, tension within her.

She was lively again.

They ate at a leisurely pace in the quiet. Not full silence, but their voices locked in a slow and quiet murmur, discussing the things they've found, experiences outside in their individual lives, events they look forward to (Mrs. Komeda asked him to invite her to see _Don Quixote)_. He allowed himself to retire his person suit. At some point, he said something innocuous and trivial. He should have been disappointed by the magnitude of her reaction, but the genuine smile on her face?

He wore it on his own.

"And Abigail?"

His face was smooth, not allowing her to see an ounce of betrayal he felt or the rage he felt at not yet knowing how to separate the girl from the life he wanted for them. Abigail could have fitted perfectly into that life, but she made a choice.

She made a choice and would have to suffer the consequences.

"I promised you Abigail."

"She's still in the hospital."

He searched her face for any defiance, for any challenge or distrust she might have carried at his yet unkept promise. He found none. Instead, he found patience. She fully believed in him and his promises.

"For now," he assured with one last bite.

The heart was ruined with bitterness.

 _ **Port Haven Psychiatric Facility,** **Baltimore, Maryland**_

Abigail gravitated to her protector. She could not bare the weight of Will's kind yet distrustful eyes or that of Hannibal's disappointment. Instead, she latched onto the older woman. She clung to her tightly. She hid her suspicion of the two behind big blue fearful eyes. Hannibal's were too sharp to miss it. Will saw it too, but he softened when Hannibal did not. When she pulled away from the hug, she kept her hands on Bella's as if that would tether her to Bella's life.

As if it would protect her.

"What happened to you?" Abigail asked, genuinely concerned. He and Will were an after thought, a flicker of the eyes. Bella didn't answer, and when Abigail realized she would not easily give one, she took it as an insult. She, too, knew nothing of Bella's becoming. "You can tell me. I'm not a child." She was not a stranger to violence. She was both an observer and a participant.

"Wrong place, right time," Bella answered as honestly as she could. "Someone tried to kill Hannibal."

Abigail gave a look of concern. It was genuine, only not for his wellbeing. She would miss him if he died, yes, but that was one less person who knew her secret. He could forgive her for that. Perhaps only that.

"Did you kill him?"

Her words land on Will bluntly, heavily. Before he knew what he did now, he might have thought her anxious, worried for their safety. He knew what she did. He suspected why she did as well, but the curiosity in her voice left Will's ears ringing.

He looked to Bella then, briefly entertaining the thought himself. Would he forgive her if she had? Would he forgive her if she lied about it? He absorbs the thought - a scene playing out before him of her, his scar faced partner slamming a stag statue over the head of Tobias Budge with a smile. What is unsettling is how he is unbothered by the thought. What is unsettling is how he only wanted to hold her all the more.

"No."

Despite his readiness to accept the opposite, had it came to pass, Will's shoulders relaxed some. She missed this, but Hannibal didn't.

He was watching Will just as closely as he did her.

He could see Will watching the two as their conversation switched to an offer from Freddie Lounds. Abigail avoided both Hannibal and Will's eyes as she considered the offer - she wanted to change what people thought of her. That was true. All of them saw how she faired under the eyes of those who saw her as guilty. The only lie that left her lips wanting "everyone to know the truth."

It was then Will's face changed.

"That's a bad idea." It wasn't discernible, whether it was concern for Bella's, Hannibal's, or Abigail's involvement in the overall story that troubled him. Regardless, Will draws a line, warning her of what was to come if Abigail continued. "If you do this, you'll be giving up all of your privacy."

"Ours as well," Hannibal warned.

Abigail's face twisted. She looked like the teenager she was as she crossed her arms, leaning back in her chair away from the two. Her head turned to the person she trusted most, calling on her.

"Mine's already gone."

"Abigail," Bella sighed, a bruised hand reaching out to the younger girl. She took her hand, giving it a comforting squeeze. "It's not."

The certainty in her voice sparked suspicion in Will. Head tilting away, eyes still focused on them. Did she know? Would she have kept this from him?

"Everyone will forget about this."

"Cannibalism isn't the easiest to erase from a person's image," Abigail snapped back. Bella only blinked patiently. "Besides," Abigail began again, sharp eyes looking to a man she might have seen as a father. "It's not like either of you have anything to hide. No one's calling you a cannibal or an accomplice to one. . . Not when you fire ten bullets into one."

There was a vicious defiance in her eyes, a grudge she had yet to acknowledge baring towards Will as she reminded him of one of his worst moments. She stared at him, just waiting for a seemingly inevitable snap. She truly saw him as herfather at times, and she was tired of hiding from him. Her father. But, Will's face fell and her heart softened.

She wanted to apologize. The right corner of her pouted lips twitched, but she didn't let the words go free. She was tired of being sorry, of being guilty. She was already drowning in self-loathing and fear. She was near broken, clinging onto old habits, old faces to hide behind.

Instead of apologizing, she went on to talk about her book that would never be published. Hannibal did not bother with the details. Instead, his eyes wandered.

Across the common room, he spied a young girl perfect and poised as she hunched over, picking at the petals of an unfortunate flower. A young girl with her angelic face focused intently on Abigail Hobbs; fascination and frustration swirling in her eyes. Blue like the sky. Her sharp eyes shifted from Abigail to him. Something flashed in those very eyes, too quick to recognize. She tilted her head down, long blond hair falling in front of her face in a stream of curls.

 _Curious_.

Hannibal turned his head away from her, looking back to Abigail. He allowed himself to be drawn back into the conversation.

When they began exchanging goodbyes, he saw the girl once more. Pink lips pressed together, jaw clenched, arms crossed, and one emotion screaming from her pretty blues.

Jealousy.

As he passed by her on their way out, he caught a whiff of envy and violence.

 _Curious,_ indeed.

 _ **Will Graham's House, Wolftrap, Virginia**_

Her fingers remained curled around the doorknob when she looked him in the eyes. Her grip did not lessen when they bored into hers, a question he so desperately didn't want to ask rising in his throat. For a moment, just one, she fell back into her old self. An ambivalent self. One that would run, eyes shrieking, heart pounding, feet on the ground carrying her farther and father away from what frightened her. And what frightened her this time? The look of heartbreak in his eyes.

"Did you know?"

His voice was broken. A whisper should have never been as loud.

She waited for him to raise it. She expected him to be impatient. She expected him to break through her, demanding why she would do such a thing. She waited. . . and waited. Will's eyes continued to stare into hers. Lips parted, breath hot as he tried to catch himself. It was then that she realized with wide eyes and a tilting head, that he was not angry. Not at her hiding Abigail from Jack.

"Know what?" she asked carefully.

It was then that she saw his anger. The skin of his face tightened as his brows rose, disbelief written across his feathers. He took a step forward then. The doorknob clicked when she gripped it tighter. The anger drained from his face. Just as quickly, his face reassembled in regret. All he is is tired and sorry in that moment. It left a bitter guilt in her mouth at the same time.

Slowly, she let go of the doorknob. He did not deserve to feel guilt for her easily frightened heart. Moving through the thick silence, she peeled off her coat and scarf, hanging it on one of her hooks. When she turned back to him, she lifted her chin, prompting his response.

"Are we really going to do this?"

He didn't want to fight.

"I would have to know what you're talking about to do anything."

She didn't either.

"Abigail."

The word left his lips in a tired and drawn out breath.

Her footsteps that carried her past him and into the living room stopped.

Neither of them wanted to disrupt the peace they found together.

"Did you know she killed Nicholas Boyle?" he clarified, following her, closing whatever distance she created.

She didn't avoid his eyes. Instead, she looked directly into them, allowing him to see her.

"No."

His face twitched, not being able to settle on an expression. Relieved. Hesitant. Worried.

"We never talked explicitly about him."

Will stared at her, searching her eyes. He wanted to know if this was a deliberate choice. He wanted to know if she kept this from him. Then, he blinked and slowly nodded. This was not unlike her.

"She took a life."

"Haven't we all?"

The truth of it hit him hard. He moved to sit on the couch. A few dogs came flocking to his side, sensing his distress. He allowed himself to run his fingers through Winston's long fur, to scratch behind Buster's ear, to look back at Bella when she settled down beside him.

"We have to lie for her. All of us," he pointed out.

Bella gave a slow and certain nod. He didn't know whether to feel at peace or more conflicted.

"This doesn't have to change anything," she tried, a hand on his wrist. There was fear in her eyes that he found. He understood in this moment why she wouldn't say anything - why he didn't say anything when he found out. They both had something to lose.

But they didn't.

"It does change things," he insisted, but his voice undercuts any gravity he tried to impose on her. He was forgetting his anger, the betrayal that doesn't sit right with him anymore. He may not have told her any time soon, had he not seen her devotion under a new light. She may not have told him either. Even he could not deny how badly he wanted Abigail to be truly innocent. It may have been a daydream to one day take Abigail fishing (she was always smiling in those daydreams. Her biggest were when she would reel in a trout caught on a lure named after him), but he wanted it all the same. "It does change things."

She was silent after that. Her heart sunk. By the way her shoulders drew forward and her chest fell, it almost looked real. The sinking. Her lips parted, a hollowed breath leaving them. She turned away from him, so clearly devastated. For a moment, he thought she might cry.

She didn't.

Instead, she rose from her place and left. Three dogs trailed after her, one of them Buster. He heard the sound of the fridge opening, glass clinking against glass, and then the sound of her footsteps as she passed by. He heard the bathroom door opening and closing. A part of him wished she would have slammed the door, but it's the quiet turning of the doorknob and lock clicking that broke him.

He could hear Heidi and Buster padding back and forth in front of the bathroom door, whining. It's not guilt he felt anymore or blame. It was loss. One of them should be looking at the other with accusations written on the tip of the tongue. That was what normal people did. Place the blame on each other. Though, he supposes he never knew someone quite like himself until her. The self-loathing was like looking in a mirror..

He distracted himself with his dogs and a beer.

She returned to him two hours later. By then he was in bed. Her skin was hot and her fingers pruny. He felt them graze his arm for almost a second before they were gone. The heat too. She pulled up the sheets, turning over on her side away from the middle of their bed. She settled her head on a pillow, the cool cotton warming against her heated cheek. Her breathing was broken, never steady. He could feel her tension without touching her. He felt the aching. The longing.

Eventually - however many hours pass by, he was unsure - he turned over.

He expected her to be cold, clutching the sheet tightly in her sleep. Her legs were drawn upwards, but not entirely to her chest. Her fingers were curled around her own shirt. There was a shattering feeling that accompanied the sight. A long sleeve sweater, covering her arms and back.

It was then he couldn't help himself. He woke her with how the mattress moved when he moved closer. She tensed at first, but melted so easily in his arms. He wasn't the only one who couldn't remain angry.

In the morning, he woke for the first time because of her. She untangled herself from him, quietly walking away. He heard the sound of running water. He was left in a half-dream state. When she came back, she had a glass in hand. Water. He was always thirsty in the morning.

Last night left him feeling worse than a hangover would have. The sunlight hurt his eyes. Undoubtably her still red ones ached at the brightness. Still, gently, she placed a hand on his cheek. Without thinking, he leaned into her touch, placing his own over hers. He heard her breathe. A relieved sigh. His lips curled involuntarily.

She brought the glass to his lips, pouring some in his mouth. He drank readily, left wanting when she pulled it away, gulping the rest. It was then that he got a better look at her. The sweater remained. The silence too.

His fingers curled around hers. She spread hers before trying to slip free of him. He didn't let her go. She gave an entranced expression, an unsure one.

"Will," she whispered. He said nothing. "Do you want me to go?"

Her words struck him wide awake.

"You live here," he managed to choke out.

"I can go," she promised, trying to hide the pain brought on by his words, misinterpreting it as the only reason why he wouldn't want her to leave.

She tried again to slip out of his grasp, but he held on tight. He then pulled her to him. It was a tug-like motion, not entirely sure of anything more than wanting her to stay. She sunk down before him.

"No."

He wrapped his arms around her. Tired, longing arms. He could feel her try again to maintain some rigidity, some distance, but the safety and warmth she felt overcame that.

"This is your home."

Her eyes stung as she understood.

 _I'm your home._

"I'm sorry," she finally said.

"Me too."

Burying her face in his neck, she breathed him in.

In that moment she knew.

Yes, things had changed, but one thing remained the same.

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 ***Dialogue taken from iZombie. Season 4, Episode 9 "Mac-Liv-Moore"**

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 **SO I didn't technically wait half a year before updating!**

 **. . . Sorry.**

 **Anyways, I just wanted to let you all know I am not giving up on this. Updates are coming! Slowly but surely.**

 **Anyways, do leave a review telling me your thoughts! I know this wasn't the most exciting chapter, but it is needed for what I have planned!**

 **No previews for the next chapter. This chapter is your preview if you're a good guesser!**

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 **PS:** **I know I could have introduced the scene with proper narration, but you've all seen the show.**


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